What is a long-tail keyword?
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Long-tail keyword: A specific, longer search phrase that few people search for on its own but that faces less competition, the opposite of a short, popular head term.
The long tail idea was popularised by Chris Anderson in Wired in October 2004, and search marketing borrowed it for the many narrow phrases that, added up, bring a large share of visits.
AI assistants push this further: the queries they run for one question are often longer and more specific than what a person types. Fan-out queries vs keywords compares the two with recorded examples.
Read next
- Fan-out queries vs keywords: what is the difference?
- What is query expansion?
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