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is it ok to use hyphens in my article title?

by Theone24
11 replies
It may seem like a stupid question but it is much easier to put your keyword in the article when using a hyphen and I thought google might realize that. I think it can also create eye catching titles aswell.
But I still wanted to ask for your oppinions.
Thanks,
#article #hyphens #title
  • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
    Hi Jell,

    If you are talking about using a hyphen like this,

    "Dog Grooming - 4 Things You Should Know Before You Start"

    Then yes. Chris Knight from EzineArticles has suggested this as a preferred style.

    "Dog Grooming - How To Keep Your Dog Happy While Grooming"
    "Dog Grooming - Don't Make These Mistakes"
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan700
    Originally Posted by JELL View Post

    It may seem like a stupid question but it is much easier to put your keyword in the article when using a hyphen and I thought google might realize that. I think it can also create eye catching titles aswell.
    But I still wanted to ask for your oppinions.
    Thanks,
    Sometimes you have to. A keyword phrase by itself may already be taken - and rejected by EZA. If you put a keyword phrase - hyphen - and then another phrase will give you better odds that you won't be rejected for having a duplicate title.
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  • Profile picture of the author thegoddessofeleven
    Yes. Google skips right over punctuation marks and hyphens. So, if your keyword is "exercises to lose weight running," your article title could be:

    Exercises to Lose Weight: Running Is The Way To Go!

    and, in your article body, you could say, "We're going to go over some exercises to lose weight. Running is the first, and most obvious, exercise you'll want to look into."

    Google looks at all of them the same.

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  • Profile picture of the author Theone24
    Thanks for all the help, it's often worth checking vs making small mistakes that affect business. (Just me over worrying I guess )
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeGriffith
    It's ok to use hyphens, or double dashes. I haven't had any problems using them in my Ezine articles. I don't think those marks are picked up by Google. I use them because they allow me to position my keyword phrase at the beginning of the sentence and prevent an awkward-sounding title.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeff Henshaw
      It's ok to use hyphens, or double dashes. I haven't had any problems using them in my Ezine articles.
      What the heck is a "double dash" guys - two hyphens in the same sentence? I've never come across the term before :confused:

      Excuse my ignorance,

      Jeff.
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  • Profile picture of the author monopuff
    Jeff, it's used to represent a colon. I think ezinearticles requires that
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  • Profile picture of the author TheRichJerksNet
    Google ignores symbols in Urls, since your article title is normally used as the the url with SEO'ed sites those symbols are already added.

    mydomain.com/article/where-is-my-cat
    mydomain.com/article/where+is+my+cat
    mydomain.com/article/where_is_my_cat

    Is all seen as the same because the symbols are ignored. Different sites use different ways for SEO'ed url's.

    If a site use dashes for instance and you add dashes to your title then your url will end up being something like

    mydomain.com/article/where--is--my--cat

    If a site uses underscores for their SEO'ed url's and you added dashes then you would get a url for your article that will look like this.

    mydomain.com/article/where_-_is_-_my_-_cat

    In anycase the symbols are ignored...

    James
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeff Henshaw
      Jeff, it's used to represent a colon. I think ezinearticles requires that
      Well thanks for that monopuff. I'd never have figured that out.

      Thanks also to James for the Google symbols advice.

      Regards,
      Jeff
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