Are search results different between uppercase and lowercase? Questions about keyword notation in SEO

“Does the search result or ranking change with uppercase and lowercase letters?”

Are you curious about that?

When working on SEO, questions about keywords come up one after another, right?

Among them, questions about details like notation are often overlooked.

However, all SEO measures start with “keywords.”

From analyzing competitor sites to writing content, it involves every step, so accurate knowledge about keywords, even if detailed, is necessary.

So, in this article, we will explain how the notation of keywords affects search results and SEO.

If you are working on SEO, please make use of the content of this article in your daily search behavior and keyword selection.

Do search results change with uppercase and lowercase letters?

In conclusion, if “user search intent is the same,” search results do not change with uppercase and lowercase letters, half-width and full-width characters.

Since the BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) update in 2019, search engines have significantly improved their ability to understand the subtle nuances and context of keywords using artificial intelligence (AI).

※BERT refers to the technology of using AI to make computers understand human language.

Even if the notation is different, such as “Google” and “google,” search engines can easily understand that the user’s intent is the same.

Google’s official page also introduces the following as “Tips for Search”:

4. Don’t worry about the details

English spelling: Spell check is done automatically, so even if it is slightly wrong, it will be searched with the correct spelling.
Uppercase and lowercase distinction: The search results are the same for “New York Times” and “new york times.”

Source: Google Search Tips

It seems that there is no need to be sensitive to the distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters.

Search results with uppercase and lowercase letters

So, let’s actually confirm whether search results really do not change with uppercase and lowercase letters. We will search for “SEO” (uppercase) and “seo” (lowercase) respectively.

The number of hits in Japan is about “645,000,000” for both, and there is no difference in the pages displayed at the top.

Therefore, it can be said that the distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters, half-width and full-width characters is not necessary.

However, be careful because there are keywords where search results change depending on the notation.

We will explain in the next chapter, so please check it.

Cases where search results change

Unlike uppercase and lowercase letters, there are cases where the notation of keywords should be distinguished, leading to changes in search results.

Here, we will introduce two cases where search results change depending on the notation.

Let’s look at each one.

Case1: Word order

In the case of “compound keywords” consisting of several words, search results change when the word order is reversed.

For example, in the case of “SEO external measures” and “external measures SEO,” the pages displayed at the top and the number of hits differ.

Bruce R. Miller, a former Google employee, responded to the question “Why do search results change depending on word order?” asked on a Q&A site in 2012 as follows:

Google uses a machine learning algorithm that considers the order of the words entered in the search box as one of many parameters. This algorithm considers the order of the words entered in the search box as many parameters and examines which link the user clicked on afterward to create a context-sensitive mapping.

Source: Quora – Why/how does Google judge these differences when most humans would be unable to any great degree?

In other words, since the page that the user clicks on changes depending on the word order, the search results are adjusted accordingly.

Case2: Presence or absence of spaces

In the case of compound keywords, the presence or absence of spaces can influence search results.

For example, let’s compare the search results of “SNSmarketing” (no space) and “SNS Marketing” (with half-width space).

While the difference may not be as significant as in cases of word order or notation variations, having or not having spaces changes the word separation, leading to a difference in results.

Choosing SEO keywords with multiple notations

So, when there are multiple notations for SEO target keywords, which one should you focus on for optimization?

If you are uncertain, try searching and researching.

Using Google Search or Google Keyword Planner, check the following four points:

If the keyword, like uppercase and lowercase letters, results in almost no change in search results, it does not affect SEO.

In that case, it doesn’t matter which one you use, but it’s better to unify the notation to a common one within the page.

Having inconsistent notation can give users an impression of difficulty in reading.

On the contrary, if search results change based on notation, it is recommended to align with the higher search volume.

Because there is a potential for more users to search with that keyword and flow in.

For keywords where search results change based on word order, be conscious of the order when including them in titles or headlines.

[Summary] Uppercase and lowercase letters do not affect SEO!

How was it?

This time, we explained the relationship between the notation of search keywords and search results.

Since search results and rankings do not change significantly with uppercase and lowercase letters, half-width and full-width characters, there is no need to worry too much.

However, in the following cases, results may differ, so caution is needed when selecting optimization keywords.

If you’re unsure about keyword notation, try searching first.

If you still don’t know which optimization keyword to choose, please feel free to consult with our company.