: Does the order of a keyword combination matter in the title and URL? If I wanted to rank for "Christmas Coffee" does it matter whether my title is A) 2015's Best Christmas Coffee or B)

@Ann8826881

While both are close, I prefer option C) Best Christmas Coffee 2015. Here is why.

I advise that you read: Well structured URLs vs. URLs optimized for SEO I will not get into to much from this answer, but it still really applies and why I strongly recommend reading it.

In this answer I list some of how Google weighs keywords. Keep in mind that Google is a semantics based search engine far more than people realize. While semantic weighting can be applied, these general rules still apply. I discuss this mostly in regard to search queries, but can also apply to anywhere where semantic clues can be short. This includes title tags, header tags, description meta-tags, links, and the like where semantic subject, predicate, and object do not exist. Since none of the options in your question fall into this category, I will list them here again.


Google weighs keywords from left to right with some exception.
Google weighs known keyword phrases more heavily.
Google weighs URI keyword phrases/clusters separated by a slash [/]
from left to right.
Google weighs keywords used more frequently overall less than
keywords that are more specific.
Google weighs keyword modifiers more heavily.
Google weighs keywords based upon popularity trends.
Google will remove all special (non-alpha-numeric) characters when
weighing keywords.


Your use of 2015's would likely drop the 's making it useless. If you search the net, you will find that often if the year is added, it is added at the end of the title tag.

The use of terms such as of are of little semantic value and would likely be totally ignored in your example.

In English, Christmas Cookie, as a phrase, makes sense. The term best is a modifier which only makes sense before the phrase Christmas cookie since that is how people would think and speak.

Remember two things: one, Google does not make keyword matches and that any keyword match found in the SERPs is a byproduct; and two, it is always better to create short content such as title tags as close to how people think and speak as possible.

Also remember two more things: one, it is always far better to use a semantically complete sentence or partial sentence with a subject, predicate, and object; and two, that Google fundamentally weighs in order the title tag, description meta-tag, link text, and content using parallel searches of each and blending results using an algorithm.

Weighing option C semantically, your keywords would be ordered as Christmas, Cookie, Best, 2015. This is because Christmas Cookie would be seen as a known phrase, best would be seen as a semantic modifier of Christmas Cookie but not as valuable, and 2015 a lesser modifier. You can reorder them any way you want and the semantic weighting will not change. Remember my list above??

Option C is best because it closely matches how people think and speak as well as more closely matching semantic weighting.

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@Kaufman445

Exact match always work better. I'd go for the A every time!

The amount of weight the title along carries depends on the site as a whole. Avoid repeating the exact keyword on other pages. If you do, link to your target landing page. If you create similar pages simply vary the order - use B.

Make sure the keywords, both exact match and variations, aren't in the content too much and you should be good.

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