Question

In your experience, does Google rank plural words separately from singular words? Example: i) Chiropractors vs. Chiropractor ii) Home vs. Homes iii) Shoes vs. Shoe

Answer 1

User intent for a plural is usually a list of different options like a review site. A search for the plural will show yelp or yellow pages towards the top of the serp to meet the primary search intent and then in the middle will be the top pages for singular, esp if the search is on mobile as those searches have a visit intent. At the bottom of the first page serp will be definitions of the term or pages explaining what it is. Above holds true for business type keywords like roofer/roofers, restaurants/restaurant, etc.  

Comments

@ferrante Agreed. This is exactly why I focus on singular.  

Answer 2

It will depend on the intent from the user side.  

Answer 3

If you rank for a plural, would you also automatically rank for the singular version?  

Answer 4

Plural vs Singular rank differently. For example my site has thousands of pages that we rank really well for a variety of singular terms, however, add an ‘S’ and the results change quite drastically in some cases. We do keep most of our #1 spots, but it does fluctuate.  

Answer 5

Same thing but if its a pair of shoes, you write shoe, Google may consider it as an error. So, in this case singular does not work

Answer 6

How about this; Chiroptactors. com But you build your campaign on the keyword "Chiropractor". would you then also get a chance to rank for the plural?  

Answer 7

Yes you often get different SERPs. Punch a few examples in for yourself and you'll see.  

Comments

@rotberg That's what i did and saw very little difference if any

Answer 8

Yes for my website also they are showing different ranks for plural words

Answer 9

Just look at the SERPS. Are they identical?  

Answer 10

Yes. And different search volume as well.