Googles Word On Dashes
In any discussion like this, its generally a good idea to go as close to the source of the concern as possible. In this case, that means looking for any instance where Google, or a representative of Google, has put forth an official perspective on hyphen use in URLs.
Unfortunately, Google doesnt have one big singular resource guide for SEO. Our lives would be so much easier if they gave out some kind of free manual, and their help center does give out some tips here and there, but theres no one consistent resource. For a lot of smaller issues, you have to look at tertiary sources. Googles main help center tends to focus on problems with technical implementation or actual SEO rules that will get you penalized.
I suppose thats a good sign, right? If theres no ruling explicitly stating dont use hyphens in your URL, its not going to be against the rules, so its fine to use.
In this case, the closest resource we have is the former head of Googles webspam team, Matt Cutts. Matt was, for years, the best resource many of us had for changes to and what they meant. He posted this information both on YouTube and on his own website, which still holds those posts archived for our reference. And a good thing, too, as youll see in a moment.
Ignoring his reminiscence about the old days before Google was the giant they are now, we need to skip to the last paragraph. Matt says To answer a common question, Google doesnt algorithmically penalize for dashes in the URL.
Another Way To Distinguish Between Words In A Domain Name
Besides using hyphens and dots, it’s also possible to write your domain name using camel case. For example,even though you can reach this site using the domain name”thesitewizard.com”, the same site can also be reached by using “TheSiteWizard.com”, where the “t” in “the”,the “s” in “site” and the “w” in “wizard” are capitalised .
Note that both “thesitewizard.com” and “TheSiteWizard.com” are the exact same domain. I did not buy 2 domains withdifferent capitalisations. Domain names are case insensitive. Once you buy your domain, you can write it with anycombination of capital and small letters, and it’ll still be regarded as the same thing.
In other words, if your domain name comprises multiple words, and you feel that it’s necessary to distinguish betweenthose words, one way is to take advantage of this indifference to the case in the domain name system, and use capital letters for the beginning of each new word in your domain name. And before you ask, you don’t have to do anything special to”enable” this feature. Simply use your equivalent of “TheSiteWizard.com” anywhere on your site where you would normally use “thesitewizard.com” . That is, put the camel case version of your domain name in your logos, your web addresses,your email address, your stationery, your name card, etc.
Lower Value When Selling Due To Stigma
The existing stigmas around hyphenated domain names mean that they will almost certainly be valued at a lower rate when sold. There isnt much that can be done about this.
Revenue will still be the most important factor, having good backlinks to encourage a higher multiple will help, but the hyphenated name will be less popular.
Whether or not this is a small factor or a large one will depend on the buyer, market, and other factors specific to each individual situation.
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Domains And Domain Authority
Looking for some advice I have a domain that has been registered since 1999 and currently hosts my website – the problem is that my business has moved in a different direction and my URL is no longer associated with my main product offering. For example in the past I was xyzgarden.com however now something like xyzhomedecor.com is much more appropriate.How should I handle this so that I am not at a disadvantage for SEO.thanks!
Should I Use Hyphens In A Domain Name
The debate surrounding hyphenated domain names has raged on for years and whether or not you should choose a domain name with ahyphen really depends on your particular circumstances.
The following is a list of some advantages and disadvantages of usinghyphenated domains for your consideration.
Advantages of hyphens
- Domain names comprised of generic terms are more likely to be available particularly when seeking to register .com.au and .com domains
- Some believe there are SEO , although this may now be not so relevant as search engines are quite adept at determining separate words within a non-hyphenated domain name or anchor text
- Can avoid the “slurl” issue where words put together in a website address can spell out something differently depending upon interpretation
Disadvantages of hyphenated domain names
- Adds an extra character to the domain name
- May pose some recall issues as people are generally used to domains without hyphens
- Harder to advertise on radio or through word of mouth.
- Generally won’t have as good a resale value as the non-hyphenated equivalent
If you decide to register an unhyphenated name, it doesn’t hurt to alsoregister the equivalent website address with a hyphen to help deter cybersquatterswho could potentially do damage to your brand in the future.
What about using underscores instead of hyphens?
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How Do Search Engines Read Hyphens
Given the choice, most people would rather buy a domain like cameratips.com than camera-tips.com, but there are times when you have to be prepared to compromise. Most SEO experts agree that hyphens are recognized as a separator by search engines. This means that they can actually help in some situations, and use of hyphens can help to clarify a sites subject matter and content. For example, the domain profitsexchange.com could be read by a search engine as profit sexchange. The owner may have a very different subject in mind! Adding a hyphen to make the domain profits-exchange.com would help the search engines read it correctly.
I also get asked if underscores are an alternative to hyphens when choosing domain names. My understanding is that Google reads an underscore as a character rather than a space, and so this isnt recommended.
Should I Put A Dash In My Domain Name
In normal, everyday written language, there are a lot of ways to separate words. A space, for one, but also all sorts of punctuationcommas, m-dashes, underscores, asterisks, apostrophes, dots, and more. But in a domain name, you really only have one option: -.
The hyphen, commonly known as a dash , is the only spacing character allowed in a domain name. That makes it the only option for when you want to register a domain name with two words in it and you dont want toor cantmash them together with no space between them.
But should you register a domain name with a dash in it?
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Question About Getting Domain Name Re
I recently swapped my domain from www.davescomputers.com to www.computer-help.com .Originally www.computer-help.com was 301 re-directing to www.davescomputers.com …however my long term goal is to eventually rebrand my business so I decided to utilize the other domain by swapping the main domain.Is consistant blogging the best way to get Google to re-index the entire website?My focus has been quality posts and sharing them with vairus social profiles I created.
What Cities Have Changed Their Names
10 Cities Who Changed Their Names
- Ho Chi Minh City
Is North America a compound word?
Open form compound words include words such as hot dog, ice cream, and North America, where an adjective is combined with a noun to create a word with new meaning, but the individual words still have a space between them.
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Unusual And Spammy Looking
This is not the standard practice for domain names, which means it is unusual. Most people will assume a domain name is without hyphens. Aside from looking weird, the longer extended domain names can look spammy.
Using hyphens in domain names was a common practice with many microsite builders in the late 2000s or early 2010s, and that meant a lot of thin spammy sites using those types of domains.
Fair or not, that reputation still will stick in the minds of some potential visitors to your site.
Can Domain Name Have Two Continuous Hyphens
I looked up couple of questions on SO, which seem to suggest that two continuous hyphens are not allowed but when I search for same domain name on , it gladly accepts the name while rejects non valid domain names like my#website.com.
It’s legal in a domain name, and required for internationalised domain names which when converted from Unicode to ASCII end up prefixed with xn--
- May 9, 2013 at 18:21
- 2RFC1035 is not the last word on legal domain names and host names – there’s more in RFC 2181.
In general double hyphens are allowed. However, in your specific example, it should not be possible, because they may not occur on the third and fourth position except when writing IDN labels in their xn-- notation. See the following section from RFC 5891:
4.2.3.1. Hyphen Restrictions
The Unicode string MUST NOT contain “–” in the third and fourth character positions and MUST NOT start or end with a “-” .
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Does A Hyphen In A Url Hurt Seo
The hyphen – is essentially read by web crawlers to be a spacer, so using it does not cause any SEO problems.
In fact, using a hyphen in your URLs is optimal as it makes the URL far more readable,
See the examples below:
- https://danrich.co/dohyphensaffectsseo
Which of these is most easily readable?
While there is an argument to be made for the underscores these are a bad idea as they are not commonly used so anyone trying to type that URL in may default to the dashes anyway.
Matt Cutts wrote about this particular issue long ago.
The URL that uses no dashes or hyphens is almost unreadable.
The more easily a URL can be read the better this is for search engine rankings.
One thing to note is that you shouldnt try to replace dashes with spaces, because if you try to format a URL like this
- https://danrich.co/do hyphens affects seo
..it will be displayed like this:
- https://danrich.co/do%20hyphens%20affects%20seo
Because spaces are shown in URLs as %20 which is far more messy and far less readable than a dash.
Relevant Domain More Likely To Be Available
Since most people are looking for website names without hyphens, many great names are already taken. These might have existing sites or are being held as premium domain names costing thousands of dollars.
This can wreck a project budget. The same domain name with hyphens separating the words is often available. Many times at the base rate of $10-20 for a domain name.
This opens up the options for picking up a domain name or getting the domain name that matches the name of your business. There are more relevant, memorable options for domain names available when hyphens are in the mix.
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How To Register Your Domain Name And Create A WordPress Site
Serious about becoming an affilaite marketer? Let’s set up your website! It’s not as hard as you might think! Just follow these simple step-by-step instructions, and for $2.95 per month, you’ll have your own domain name on a WordPresswebsite with discounted Bluehost web hosting. Ready to get started? Let’s go!
Do Hyphens Put Visitors Off
Another argument against the use of hyphens is that potential visitors prefer simple domain names. Just as very long domain names can raise suspicion that a site may be spammy, too many hyphens in a domain can result in some lost traffic. If you saw the domain best-digital-cameras-for-professionals.com, would you expect it to be a quality site?
If your business model means you attract visitors by word of mouth, use of hyphens can be an issue. Your website needs to have a catchy name that customers will remember easily. This is also the case if you cant always publish the domain in your marketing. For example, if a shopping channel presenter says go to our website Christmascrafts.com to see more of our products, customers wouldnt expect to have to add hyphens. The domain name Christmas-crafts.com could lose a lot of traffic.
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Are There Diminishing Returns Of Keyword Stuffing Domain Names
Aside from the obvious usability issue of having a super long domain name. Let’s just for a moment image that that doesn’t matter at all.Is there a point at which having another keyword in your domain name is not giving a significant boost to SER?Lets be more specific. Often we see two keyword domains, and they rank well. and I have also seen many 3 keyword domains raking well. but what about a 4, 5 or 6 keyword domain name?like:keyword1keyword2keyword3keyword4keyword4keyword6.com < — obviously it looks ridiculous, but we are ignoring that factor for the duration of this question.I would also like to know in multiple keyword domain names, does the location of the keywords have any relevance? is it like title tags? closer to the front = more boost?And furthermore one last question on the same subject. Does google consider varations of words when it gives the boost to “exact match” domain name in search results. for example: BookStory.com V.S. BookStories.com when someone searches for “story books” would these two get the same bonus?
Hyphen In Domain Name Or Url Is It Good Or Bad For Seo
Should I use a hyphen in domain names? While considering the domain name for our utility, certain aspects revolve around getting a prime version. It should be catchy, SEO friendly, unique, elaborative, understandable, and sensible regarding the utility.
The hyphen, frequently known as a dash, is the only spacing character allowed in a domain name. That makes it the only option for when you want to register a domain name with two words in it, and you dont want toor cantmix them with no space between them.
It is the single spacing character permissible in a domain name. Indeed, nobody wants to mess up their domain name by eliminating a single spacing character. But factors are wrapping around the use of a dash , so here we are elaborating on each perspective and the overall hyphen in domain name SEO effects. So stay tuned!
What is a hyphen?
The hyphen is a punctuation mark that pairs two words or joins two parts of words together. However, it is good to note that a hyphen is not interchangeable with a dash.
If you aim to know more about the basic rules for domain names , check this article out!
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Favor Subfolders/subdirectories Over Subdomains
Search engines keep different metrics for domains than they do for subdomains, so even though Google itself has stated that â from a ranking perspective â content in subdomains and subdirectories is treated roughly equally, its still recommended that webmasters place link-worthy content like blogs in subfolders rather than subdomains .
The notable exceptions to this are language-specific websites. .
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Hyphen In Domain Names: Domain Value Vs Seo Pros Cons
Not many big-name websites have hyphens in their domain name anymore. This practice was a little bit more common when the web was new, and it might be tempting to think theres no reason to buy a hyphenated domain name.
Does the data support this assumption? There are good reasons to believe the answer is no.
While there are some disadvantages to having hyphens there are also several advantages. Im going to go over the pros/cons of domain names with hyphens, how they affect domain value, as well as SEO effects.
Lets get into it!
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Harder To Advertise Through Word
Word-of-Mouth advertising can be a powerful tool, but since most domain names do not use hyphens, people you talk to about a website will assume the name is without hyphens. Even saying With hyphens between the words, might not guarantee the person remembers to type it incorrectly.
The more awkward a word-of-mouth recommendation is, the less likely it is to be remembered and to spread.
Using hyphens in a domain can be good in some situations to get a better domain name in a competitive field but it will limit the word-of-mouth spread.
Can Domain Names Have Dots
Domain names can or cannot contain dots. A dot is a reserved character for Top Level Domains and Sub-Domains. Examples of TLDs are .com, .net, etc. and examples of Sub-Domains are mail.mybusiness.com, support.mybusiness.com, etc.
So yes, a domain name can contain dots. However, you cannot register a domain name with dots in it. For example, you cannot register a domain name mail.mybusiness.com. What you will need to do is first register mybusiness.com and then create a sub-domain for it called mail.mybusiness.com. You can easily create a sub-domain for free once you have registered the domain.
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Can Domain Names Have Hyphens
Yes, domain names can have hyphens. You can register a domain name with a hyphen in it, for example, my-business.com.
However, a domain name cannot start or end with a hyphen. The hyphen needs to be in the middle of the domain name. And you cannot have two consecutive hyphens in the middle of the domain name.