Topic: SEO for alternate spellings?

Let's say I have a website whose primary topic has two possible spellings. (Case in point: taekwondo vs. tae kwon do.) I want the page to be Google-friendly, which means that rather than a big blob of meta tags, I need to have a lot of solid informative text that uses the keywords liberally. But for the sake of consistency, I want to use one spelling or the other throughout.

My question should be obvious: If I pick one spelling, how can I show up in searches for the other, equally common spelling?

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

PT: Its a tricky one - you are probably best picking one spelling and focusing on it hoping that someone looking for resorces where there are alternate spelling would check both. That way you won't get get mediocre rankings for both spellings (but a good ranking for one and poor one for the other). Also switching between the different spellings is confusing for the user.

Check to see which has the most sites (i.e. people are more likely to searc for one rather than the other):

432,000: www.google.com/search?q=taekwondo

150,000: www.google.com/search?q=%22tae+kwon+do%22

It is interesting to see that the Google/DMOZ directory is:

Sports > Martial Arts > Tae Kwon Do

There are so many different spellings too: Taekwon-Do, T'aekwondo, etc. I think what would be critical is actually getting yourself listed in that directory.

I also checked Zeal which have both spellings (I can submit you to those categories as I'm signed up there):

Home > United States > New > Sports > All Sports > Sports Reference > Events > Olympics > News & Guides > Summer Events > Taekwondo

Home > United States > New > Sports > All Sports > Martial Arts > Korean > Tae Kwon Do

So I think the answer is go for the most popular spelling as there is clearly no set spelling. I would try and boost your chances by adding both (all?) spellings to your keywords and description metatags and pos. mention the alternate spellings on the main page as this will raise help improve the rankings for the alternate addresses.

You might also want a 'Contact us' page which gives code snippets for the links and buttons into your site so you can guarantee that people link in using the spelling you will be targetting.

I would recommend not cheating and stuffing the alternate spellings into a hidden DIV on your page.

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Hey, that's all pretty good advice. Too bad there's no perfect answer... getting listed in directories is probably a good strategy overall, because then Google will notice the directory page and everyone wins.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

Of course, given the options, I would personally have to opt for the correct terminology - Taekwondo.

I would feel better knowing that I had it right, even if people searching for it didn't....

That option may be a luxury not available though...depending on the site and its purpose.




[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 08-16-2003).]

One great alternative to picking one or the other in a near 50/50 useage of different spellings of the same word is to create two entry pages, and submit them both to the search engines.

For example, make the home page use the word "Taekwondo" in all instances, then make a second copy of this page have all instances use the "Tae Kwon Do" version. Then, submit both the versions of the home page to the search engines. This can really make a difference in specific situations. The multi-entry submission to search engines is sometimes abused by hit-hungry sites.