SEO question about domain

by 8 replies
9
Hello,

This is a question about hyphens in between a word in a domain.

Suppose I wanted to buy the domain revitalize.com but it was not available. But re-vitalize.com was available.

My question is that if I take the re-vitalize.com domain then for SEO will the hyphen make a difference to my search engine rankings. Does the hyphen act as a word separator (does google recognize it as such). Or does it not make too much of a difference.

Thanks for your help.

regards

Nikhil
#search engine optimization #domain #question #seo
  • A hyphen makes a huge difference, and no longer makes the keyword an absolute match. Unfortunate, controversial, but true.
    • [1] reply
    • Absolutely correct. However hyphens between whole words are coolio.
      I see what you are trying to do.. add another keyword..

      revitalize-yourself.com
      revitalize-me.com

      wj
  • Perhaps you could do your own test and see what happens? I know some of us don't have the time/money to invest in all these weird ideas, but this one should have it's own test.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • Just to be safe, you are probably better off going with something else.

    revitalizesite
    revitalizeblog
    buyrevitalize
    getrevitalize
    i<3revitalize

    Something with the word still in it.
  • According Matt Cutt Google treat hyphen(-) as word spectator. In respective of SEO without hyphen is the good.
    • [2] replies
    • Thanks to everyone for their help.

      Gives me some food for thought as I go about choosing my domain and answers my question

      regards

      Nikhil
    • I think you will always be able to find someone to support either idea, that hyphens do matter or hyphens don't matter. The only way to know for sure is to test it yourself. I have not tested it yet, but will be doing so soon. A few of my new domain names have hyphens. The hyphens are word separators, as suggested by others in this thread. These sites are still being developed, so I don't have any results to share.
  • I personally have a domain with hyphens and seen no difference. As long as the keywords are there, no problem, even if you put no hyphens at all would not matter. Google does not favoritize some at the expense of others because of lower supply of domain names.

    You simply want to avoid cutting the keyword apart. If your keyword is revitalize, you don't want to cut it down to re-vitalize. It has to be whole. I suggest you look into longer hyphened up keywords which will not be affected SEOwize.

    Most all domains in the top 10 in SE's are very long hyphened up domain names for the most competitive keywords, so SE's like them too!

    But for me and you, It mostly has to do with the number of target keywords you can put in a domain name that gives you more keywords thus more exposure overall.

    Take care,

    Bernard St-Pierre
    Marketing Consultant
    Copywriter/Teacher
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed