Capitalization matters in Google SERPs!
It’s amazing how fast things change when it comes to search engines.
Last week, a student asked me in class if capitalization makes a difference in search engines. He clarified by asking: “If you type a phrase into Google, will you get different results if you capitalize or not?”
I made a bold, strong statement that Google shows the same results if you use lowercase or capitals. No need to worry about that when doing Keyword Research!
Uh… Well… Until now, that is.
I just got a tip (from a twitterer) this morning that Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are showing up differently for capitalized and lowercase keyword phrases.
For example, a search on Corey Creed brings…
But a search on corey creed (lowercase) brings…
(Notice the third indented result. It’s different.)
Upon doing a little research on this, it seems as if it was originally discussed at a recent Webmaster World Forum posting about a month ago. However, at that time it was only happening outside the USA.
It now seems to be happening now.
This raises very interesting questions…
- Why would Google do this? Is it a new feature or bug?
- Are they noticing people want something different when capitalizing?
- Do we need to start including both types of phrases when doing keyword research?