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Add a hyphen between URL words or not?

by PBMax
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
which is better?

great - plumber . com OR greatplumber . com?

I read somewhere the Google can't separate the words, so adding the hyphen allows the bots to see "plumber" and will help categorize the site.
#add #hyphen #url #words
  • Profile picture of the author elcidofaguy
    When it comes down to it there is no difference wrt SEO and the big G... But I will say that my personal opinion is that people remember web addresses without the hyphen...

    Or if there is a web address that you want which ONLY has the hyphen available then personally I would stay away and aim to pick something unique on its own grounds noting there are a ton of new TLD extensions which are available these days... For obvious reasons as you can imagine especially when you consider being on the other end of a someone copying your domain URL but with hyphens....

    So if I was you I would pick the without hypthen URL and if you wish to further protect your copyright/trademark then also add other variations such as with hyphen's...

    Hope that helps.....
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  • Profile picture of the author ilee
    Originally Posted by PBMax View Post

    which is better?

    great - plumber . com OR greatplumber . com?

    I read somewhere the Google can't separate the words, so adding the hyphen allows the bots to see "plumber" and will help categorize the site.
    Maybe in 2002 there was a shred of truth to that, but I can assure you google knows how to separate words.

    Regardless, the days when you can register a keyword domain and rank easily are gone. In SEO terms, it doesn't matter which domain you go for, as neither will help you that much anyway.

    For branding purposes, try and find a top 100 domains list and find a single hyphened domain... they're not there because hyphens look rubbish
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  • Profile picture of the author edpudol1973
    In terms of SEO I don't see any advantage. But when it come to internet users, domain with no hyphens will surely win.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim3
    Google ranks web pages not sites,
    If you have the words tap washers, jointing compound, Yorkshire fittings, copper pipe and flux on the same page they will know what the page is about, the domain name does not come into it.

    Use domain names for branding purposes e.g. Fredsplumbing, if you are original enough a hyphen will not be required, users may not remember them anyway, and as others have pointed out they look crappy and at worse, spammy.
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  • Profile picture of the author seoboyz01
    At one time, I'd read how you should not be using the under score (_) mark in your domain name and file names. And, Matt Cutts has done an article on that too. However, I've never heard how you should not use the dash in a domain name.

    With that being said, there's no real reason to use the dash (-) in a TLD, unless you can't get that same name without the dashes.

    If it were just me, then I would use the TLD or url without the dashes. I think it ranks better, but there's no proof one way or another. So for me, maybe it's just habit.
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    • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
      Originally Posted by seoboyz01 View Post

      At one time, I'd read how you should not be using the under score (_) mark in your domain name and file names. And, Matt Cutts has done an article on that too.
      Would you care to show me a domain that's been registered with an underscore _ ???

      David
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  • Profile picture of the author chrisv24
    No difference from an SEO perspective but I'd go for the option without a hyphen. I think hyphens make urls look amateurish and on a mobile device it will take people longer to type as they'll have to switch keyboards.
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  • Profile picture of the author st0nec0ld
    Me, as a user, I would prefer URLs without a hyphen, less hassle.
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  • Profile picture of the author debbiesherman
    Personally I prefer a URL without hyphen. As for SEO there's no problem about hyphen. And I believe google is smart enough to separate words by now
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  • Profile picture of the author beastwood
    Banned
    I don't see problems with putting hyphen on your URL when it come to SEO but for users its easier without it.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
    Oh my God, not one accurate answer!!!

    If you don't know what you are talking about at least give the OP a heads up you are either guessing or repeating what you've heard from others. some of us actually do SEO research, this is very easy to test and prove either way.

    Hyphens are treated as a keyword separator (like a space). I recently made a forum post here about this (someone asked this same question), so not going to repeat it all was this thread http://www.warriorforum.com/search-e...s-keyword.html and a bit here http://www.warriorforum.com/search-e...ml#post9700974

    Hyphen separated keywords = small ranking factor, not very important, though when creating filenames your URLs including images always use hyphens. I don't know how important a factor URLs are, I suspect very small, but even if it's 0.5% of a pages ranking that's an easy 0.5% to get right.

    From a strictly SEO only perspective great-plumber.tld is better than greatplumber.tld, Google can't parse great or plumber out of the latter.

    David
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  • Profile picture of the author Siyaagarwal
    I don't see issues with putting hyphen on your URL when it come to SEO however for clients its less demanding without it.
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  • Profile picture of the author altonroot
    I will go with greatplumber as it is always easy to remember and tell someone. Both are same for Google so will get same treatments and advantages as far as I know.
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