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…

1. Why would Google do this?  Is it a new feature or bug?
2. Are they noticing people want something different when capitalizing?
3. Do we need to start including both types of phrases when doing keyword research?

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