So I have taken the liberty of confusing you with the title, which should be "Is Keyword Phrase Word Order Important?" When conducting keyword research for search engine optimization or a sponsored listings campaign, people often use a variety of phrases. When dealing with geographical terms, for example, how do you know if you should put the location before the keyword phrase or after it? Is this important?

A thread recently started at Search Engine Watch Forums has a member asking why Google returns different number of searches estimations based on the word order, while Yahoo/Overture seems not to. Does it matter, he asks? SEW Moderator Orion (Dr. E. Garcia) has offered his opinion, which is a "no." As usual, Orion provides a thorough technical explanation as to his opinion, and he states:

most keyword discovery toys and keyword research services out there fail to provide to customers.

He also goes on to recommend:

To identify the importance of word order I recommend an on-topic analysis for the document.

The original poster is wondering if he needs to place the words in different order in order to rank for searches conducted in those particular unique orders. Aaron Wall (Seobook) recommends that it isn't needed and:

you can mix anchor text to hit different variations and permutations.

I agree with this idea, since during the SEO process of link building, people are most likely going to try and mix their inlink anchor text to focus on the more relevant association. For example, at a site about Dallas, he might use "Dallas car rental" as the anchor text to his site, and a site about car rentals may use "Car rentals in Dallas" as the anchor text.

Join the conversation and offer your opinions./experience at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Like The Story? Vote For It On Yahoo Buzz! Or On Sphinn!