Plural or Singular?

[tman]

Does it make a difference on SEO rankings?

I've found the singular eg: "Digital Camera" gets more searches/mo than "Digital Cameras". If I was setting up an ecommerce store selling digital cameras would it make a difference if I bought digitalcameras.co.uk or digitalcamera.co.uk?

I ask because I'm thinking of creating a store in a particular niche. Both domains are at nokta. Both are reg'd in the same month. I was quoted almost 10x more on the singular domain than the plural.

Which should I go for? Does it matter?

Thanks.

 

[accelerator]

An exact match domain will help you rank on the exact match, but more on bing and yahoo than on Google in my experience.

There can be large differences between singular and plural search volumes, so that does need to be considered when planning SEO.

If you are setting up a store, then many of your long tail terms may be better at converting than the generic main term, so bear that in mind when you decide how much to pay for the name.

Rgds

 

[mat]

You can take my LeatherOfficeChairs as an example, more people search for the singular, I currently rank as the second site in google for "leather office chairs" and slowly catching up, still on page 1 for the more searched for "leather office chair"

I would allways go for the plural though.

 

[boxerdog]

get them both, i always like to just to take away any possible competition

 

[tman]

get them both, i always like to just to take away any possible competition

lol that would be nice, but they're both at Nokta so you know they're way overpriced. But the cost of the plural is acceptable with the amt. of £ I can generate from the SEO advantages.

 

[doodlebug]

I would say non plural becuase it tends to searched for more than the plural but saying that I have the plural eg beachcasters#co#uk ranked at number 3 for beachcaster.

I would personally go for the non plural

 

[Edwin]

Plural looks better if you're specialising in the product, but singular frequently gets a LOT more searches. Six of one and half a dozen of the other...

BTW, it's worth checking which is auto-suggested by Google Suggest. If the high-volume one gets suggested every time then the situation could reverse itself if Google changes the Suggestions. If both come up as suggestions one under the other, it's probably a more "real" differential.

 

[Retired_member41]

The man from G says, singular for domain, and plural within your optimisation.

eg using a plural

Digital Cameras

Google sees both DigitalCameras and DigitalCameras

Whereas, using the singular only, you miss the plural.

Doesn't make that much difference as you know with on page indexing, but better to have that extra than not i say.

 

[Cuailean]

I really like names where only one ending is possible e.g. GardenFurniture.extension, because then searches aren't split between single and plural.

Obviously that's not usually an option, so then I prefer the one that shows the most exact searches, usually the single. However, some terms get a lot more searches for the plural, such as many phrases ending in "cars", "bikes" or "tools", to name but a few. I sometimes find it very difficult to be sure whether plural or single gets the most searches because different search tools can give very conflicting results. Also I agree with Edwin that it pays to bear in mind the possible influence of the "auto-suggest" tool on search behaviour.

Having said that, I really don't think it matters all that much which version is used. A good argument can almost always be made for either. The single tends to have the most searches and so gives some exact match benefit. The plural often makes more sense when selling products (presumably more than one!) and does also contain the single version. So it's six and half a dozen I'd say. Just a question of going for the one you like best. I think either will do equally well with the right SEO. Sorry, I know, that's not much help with making your decision is it!