How Google Deals with States and State Abbreviations

[ChrisClever]

I am in the process of doing research on building content for some state to state transactions.   Through our PPC ad history I can see people have searched relatively evenly for full state names versus state abbreviations.  Texas vs TX or California vs. CA.  If I do a google search for one of our key terms with the state abbreviation, it seems that google returns results with the full state name and bolds the full state name in the meta description even though only the abbreviation, and not the full state name was part of the search.  I guess I'm trying to figure out if its worth me building out and targeting two sets of content...one around the full state names and one around the state abbreviations.

Any advice?

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Chris

I generally agree with "xvp's" answer. Google for the most part can pick up the distinction between the state and abbreviation. What you can do is check search volume (if there is any) for each - optimize for the one most searched for in key places like the title tag, but just make sure to include variations within the content if possible. Like include the abbreviation in the meta description if you've written it out in the title tag. But you definitely don't need to create separate pieces of content or anything just to target one or the other.

-Dan

[xvpn902]

Hi Chris,

Google recognizes both, and will show results for both on a search for one (either abbreviation or full name), but they are still working out this kinks. Issues like Google not being able to distinguish between words with more than one meaning like "OH" as the state abbreviation and as the expression, "IN", "OR" etc. They also still treat key phrases as separate in some cases, so if the phrase is searched I would target both. If you must choose, go for the full name.

Hope this makes sense.