SEO for Domain Names

by Kudek

Posted: 17 years ago 6 replies

Does Google have any preference for keywords in domain names being right up against each other as opposed to having dashes (-) in between?

e.g.
1. healthproductreviews.com
2. health-product-reviews.com

Given everything else being the same, will 1 or 2 get ranked higher?

- Kudek

#domain #names #seo

Laura B 17 years ago

I don't know if they have stated a preference, but I know Google is smart enough to discern individual keywords even without hyphens.
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pdjsolutions 17 years ago

Check out this link

“Dashed” or “Non-Dashed” Domain names | www.domainrule.com

I think it might be of help

Prateek.
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- Kudek 17 years ago
  
  Thanks Prateek! Exactly what I wanted to know.
  
  Thanks
  
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Mark Brian 17 years ago

They say you should not use dashes but I've seen and also have made domains with dashes rank well. There's no silver bullet rule but my hunches say it's about back links and on page SEO, regardless of the dashes.
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daveanderson 17 years ago

I have been told that dashes are a negative item that you should try to avoid in the domain name.
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Dave Anderson
http://presentall.com
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Fraggler 17 years ago

The only negative a hypen has on a domain is the difficulty for a customer to type it into the address bar. It doesn't affect your sites SEO ability. It does usually improve readability which may help your domain being picked by the user in the search results. It will not change your position.

Edit: I just read that link and there is no evidence provided that dashes hurt your ranking (are penalised). Matt Cutts has come out several times over the years and said that Google does not penalise dashes. Underscores on the otherhand are treated as being part of the word (dashes are ignored)
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