Do you think that stopwords harm your website performance? Do you want to discover what is the role of stop words in SEO? Not to worry! In this ultimate guide, you will get all the necessary knowledge for stop words. After reading you are confident to discard your query to advance further. In the end, you will also get the SEO stop words A-Z list as a piece of complete information. Without delaying Let’s start with what is stop words.
Table of contents
What are stop words in SEO
Stop words are frequently used words like a, an, the, for, of, etc which is usually ignored by Search engine for identifying keyword. It helps to save disk space for search engines. Additionally, the crawling process is gone fast by reducing all the unnecessary words.
This term is first introduced by Hans Peter Luhn. He is a German researcher in many fields. Information Science is one among them.
You can understand the stop words clearly through the below examples.
Examples of stop words
Let’s take a keyword for understanding. Search “Benefits of content marketing” on the internet. Look which result is shown. Here “of” is known as stop words. It means search engines ignore it to display the result. To verify it, now search “content marketing benefits” on the internet. Match with the previous result.
It is exactly the same result as the previous one. Here “of” is ignored by the search engines and provides the result. These ways, for, to, on, etc are ignored, hence it is a stop word for search engines.
Now let’s meet the most curious argument. Stop words actually harm or help.
Stop words in SEO – harm or help?
Here two popular opinions exist. Let’s know the logic behind them quickly.
Stop words harm:
Stop words are ignored during crawling by search engines. It makes your total word count low or less useful resources.
Stop words help:
Stop words help to create complete and meaningful sentences. It improves user experience. In the recent update, Google prefers user experience first. Therefore it will help the improvement of ranking.
So What strategy is best?
This answer will be clarified below. It is not homogenous for every part of the content. Instead, It will be detailed individually with important parts in the content.
Stop words in titles
It is the most important part where stop words can be reminded. Why? The title is the most important part in terms of keyword optimization. Here you have the option to put 45-60 characters. There is no meaning to adding unnecessary stop words here. Look at the below example –
Titles with stop words:
The 35 best and free tools for image compression
Titles without stop words:
35 best free image compression tools
Here 2nd one is better. Why? It simply has an option for better keyword optimization with less space. But wait? It need not be true for every title. Look at one more.
Wrong title :
Connect GoDaddy domain blogger
Right title:
How to connect GoDaddy domain to Blogger
1st one is a wrong title as it does not have a meaningful title. 2nd one is a good title because of two reasons. It is a meaningful title, as well as this line itself, is a search query. That means people search for this query on the internet. In these cases, stop word directly helps for optimization. As a proof search this query “Which SEO techniques should be avoided“.
Here you can see “Which”, should”, “be” etc are stop words but it is presented here. These days Google’s algorithm is strong and has better presentation than previous.
What is the final word for the title:
Follow these four steps –
1) Write a meaningful title
2) Only omit to stop words or rewrite the title if still title is meaning enough. One example is the benefits of content marketing or content marketing benefits.
3)Make sure your keyword is included in the title. That’s enough.
4) Always prefer user experience first and fix your title like that.
Stop words in the URL
Here you can use your strategy for stop words perfectly. There are two popular opinions for blog post URLs.
1. Lengthy URLs can be risky and medium or normal URL is good for SEO.
2. Short URL is best for SEO.
It is your choice whether you are a fan or which opinion. If you are from the first one write a URL that is understood by people easily. Include your keyword on the URL for the best benefit.
If you are from 2nd opinion then write only keywords in the URL. For example, here URL is “SEO-stop-words-list”. “stop-words-list” can also be written as a short URL.
Stop word in a keyword
It is vital to know what to do when stop words are included in a keyword. A simple answer is to include it happily.
During keyword optimization, it is suggested that write all the keywords as it is. Let’s say “how to do keyword research for SEO” is a keyword. It is best to include this keyword as it is in the title, description, introduction, etc.
Stop words in headings
The priority is a good heading. Your users should understand the context by reading a heading. Apart from that, you can omit to stop words by keeping words meaningful. Again keep keywords as it is in the heading too.
Stop words in the body
It is somehow straightforward. Never compromise user experience on the body section. Write as usual for the best result.
Removing stop words can make awkward readability. Therefore, neither try to add nor try to remove stop words in the body.
Before diving into a list look at some important notes:
Some important notes about stop words
Some quick points that need to be reminded are –
1) Search engines may or may not include a word as a stop word. It varies according to search engines.
2) Generally, frequently used words are more common to include in the list to save the time of crawling.
3) Stop words are the search engine’s perspective and they will be modified after algorithm improvement.
Now, look at SEO stop words list from A to Z.
SEO stop words list
Here SEO stop words are represented by providing a broad category. It will help to understand the types of stop words. Look at the below important stop words.
Articles:
a
an
the
Pronoun:
all
another
any
anybody
anyone
anything
as
aught
both
each
each other
either
enough
everybody
everyone
everything
few
he
her
hers
herself
him
himself
his
I
it
its
itself
many
me
mine
most
my
myself
neither
no one
nobody
none
nothing
one
one another
other
others
ought
our
ours
ourself
ourselves
several
she
some
somebody
someone
something
somewhat
such
that
thee
their
theirs
theirself
theirselves
them
themself
themselves
there
these
they
this
those
us
we
what
whatever
whatsoever
whence
where
whereby
wherefrom
wherein
whereinto
whereof
whereon
wherever
wheresoever
whereto
whereunto
wherewith
wherewithal
whether
which
whichever
whichsoever
who
whoever
whom
whomever
whoso
whomsoever
whose
whosever
whosesoever
whoso
whosoever
you
your
yours
yourself
yourselves
Adverb:
Accordingly
After
Also
Before
Besides
Consequently
Conversely
Finally
Furthermore
Hence
However
Indeed
Instead
Likewise
Meanwhile
Moreover
Nevertheless
Next
Nonetheless
Otherwise
Similarly
Still
Subsequently
Then
Therefore
Thus
preposition:
about
above
across
after
against
along
among
anti
around
as
at
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
besides
between
beyond
but
by
concerning
considering
despite
down
during
except
excepting
excluding
following
for
from
in
inside
into
like
near
of
off
on
onto
opposite
outside
over
past
per
plus
regarding
round
save
since
than
through
to
toward
towards
under
underneath
unlike
until
up
upon
versus
via
with
within
without
conjunction
For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So
Wrap up for SEO stop words list
You knew what is stop words. It is harmful or helpful. A proper strategy for titles, URLs, headings, bodies, etc. Finally, the SEO stop words list from A-Z is presented.
The last word is never to compromise user experience for stop words. You can try managing stop words in titles and URLs. Finally, write the body part without thinking about stop words. Do you find it interesting? Let’s tap share.