Stop Words List that are Common in SEO [180+]

Most of the time, search engines ignore stop words.

Not a single sentence, that a human will love to read, can be written without using the stop words like a, the, of, are, can, etc. But if you understand how search engines deal with the stop words, you can sure use them to your advantage while doing SEO.

In this short article, I will quickly explain how you can use stop words for better.

Understanding the stop words

Stop words can be pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc. that we regularly use in our daily lives.

There can be some stop phrases too, for example, “tell me” in the “tell me the current time in London” search query would be a stop phrase.

In short, here’s the thing:

Generally, stop words from the search queries are omitted by the search engines and to optimize your webpage, you need to eliminate those words. Wait… without stop words, the page will be unreadable for the users, there can’t be an article.

But… the goal is to optimize (or rather reduce) the use of stop words from the page title, URL, headings, etc. as long as it feels natural to the users because users should be the main focus of all kinds of SEO practices.

Here’s an old article by Bill Slawski to understand Google’s stop words.

Best stop words practices for SEO

Here are some practices that you may benefit from:

1. Remove the stop words from the page title as long as it is readable and feels natural to the users
2. Optimize the usage of stop words in the headings and sub-headings (h2, h3, etc.)
3. Always remove the stop words from the page URL slug, the shorter the better

The first 2 suggestions might not be suitable in different cases, but the 3rd one is suitable in almost all the cases. You must have heard the SEO advice of keeping the URLs short, removing the stop words from them definitely helps.

To give you an example, you’re writing an article on “What are the goals of SEO?” so instead of keeping your URL slug as site.com/what-are-the-goals-of-seo/, you can make it as site.com/goals-of-seo/.

And, you need to pay special attention when you’re dealing with lots of pages on the site, for example, when you’re creating pages in bulk using Programmatic SEO.

Stop words list

A

1. a
2. about
3. above
4. actually
5. after
6. again
7. against
8. all
9. almost
10. also
11. although
12. always
13. am
14. an
15. and
16. any
17. are
18. as
19. at

B

20. be
21. became
22. become
23. because
24. been
25. before
26. being
27. below
28. between
29. both
30. but
31. by

C

32. can
33. could

D

34. did
35. do
36. does
37. doing
38. down
39. during

E

40. each
41. either
42. else

F

43. few
44. for
45. from
46. further

H

47. had
48. has
49. have
50. having
51. he
52. he’d
53. he’ll
54. hence
55. he’s
56. her
57. here
58. here’s
59. hers
60. herself
61. him
62. himself
63. his
64. how
65. how’s

I

66. I
67. I’d
68. I’ll
69. I’m
70. I’ve
71. if
72. in
73. into
74. is
75. it
76. it’s
77. its
78. itself

J

79. just

L

80. let’s

M

81. may
82. maybe
83. me
84. might
85. mine
86. more
87. most
88. must
89. my
90. myself

N

91. neither
92. nor
93. not

O

94. of
95. oh
96. on
97. once
98. only
99. ok
100. or
101. other
102. ought
103. our
104. ours
105. ourselves
106. out
107. over
108. own

S

109. same
110. she
111. she’d
112. she’ll
113. she’s
114. should
115. so
116. some
117. such

T

118. than
119. that
120. that’s
121. the
122. their
123. theirs
124. them
125. themselves
126. then
127. there
128. there’s
129. these
130. they
131. they’d
132. they’ll
133. they’re
134. they’ve
135. this
136. those
137. through
138. to
139. too

U

140. under
141. until
142. up

V

143. very

W

144. was
145. we
146. we’d
147. we’ll
148. we’re
149. we’ve
150. were
151. what
152. what’s
153. when
154. whenever
155. when’s
156. where
157. whereas
158. wherever
159. where’s
160. whether
161. which
162. while
163. who
164. whoever
165. who’s
166. whose
167. whom
168. why
169. why’s
170. will
171. with
172. within
173. would

Y

174. yes
175. yet
176. you
177. you’d
178. you’ll
179. you’re
180. you’ve
181. your
182. yours
183. yourself
184. yourselves

Final words

You must understand 2 things: one, the shorter URLs are better, and two, Google shows 50-60 characters long titles in the search results. Now, you can’t let these stop words take all the limelight and hide the main keywords.

Lastly, my advice would be: to aim to reduce the stop words only from the title and URL. Apart from that, it’s not a big deal.

If you have a related query, feel free to let me know in the comments below.