====== Stem Words ======



Stemming is the ability to automatically search for different forms of a keyword. If the word computers is queried, the search engine may also return pages containing computing, computed, computer, computation etc. Computer is the stem or root word.



[[Yahoo!]] and [[Google]] support stemming by default. Google introduced stemming around the time of the Florida update leading some pundits to suggest this was the cause of the major upheavals that some highly optimized commercial sites suffered. Google’s stemming algorithm provides a wider choice of results where the [[keywords]] used are too restrictive. You will notice it most on queries with three or more keywords.



Stemming means that it is no longer necessary to target different forms of a single word in optimizations. However the specific keywords will rank better than their stemmed variants.