hyphens in urls good or bad

The particular information you post is all about golf tips. Use hyphens in your folder and page names to increase readability and click-through-rates in the SERPs, but avoid using them in your domain names. Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by aspotism, Feb 23, 2005. ... You canât include spaces in a URL, so SEO best practice is to use hyphens to separate words. There is one undisputed argument for non-hyphenated domains. It is okay to use hyphens in second-level domains. I am typically a strong advocate of NOT using hyphens when selecting a web site’s domain name. So there is no harm in using dashes in your URLs. Image from SXC.hu. hyphen in url. Yeah! ... âYeah, it was good. Having hyphens in the folder or page name portion of the URL does make the URLs harder to remember and type. I also do it to give the search engines a hand by explicitly indicating how they should parse my URL’s folder and file names into their targeted keywords. And that can still cause confusion because it isnât clear whether the hyphen is part of the URL or was added to hyphenate the paragraph. I do so primarily for the benefit of my users. you will see Matt Cutts' presentation on Google Search Website Optimization. But how often do you really think a user is going to remember the entire URL to some inner page 3 levels deep in your site and actually type it into the browser address bar? You usually see it after clicking a specific link on a site, for example, another page as in www.abc.com/blog. Is having a hyphen in your website name an issue if the page is vacant? If you need to use a hyphen in your domain name (for example best-chef.com), make sure that you purchase the non-hyphenated version (bestchef.com) and redirect it to your hyphenated version. This school of thought argues that hyphens should be used as part of domain names. © SEO? Google Commands for SEO? I like using hyphens as word separators within folder and page names in the URLs of my sites. Page 1 of 2 1 2 Next > aspotism Peon. In short, make it virtually impossible for online surfers not to â¦ Negative brand perception will make it difficult for your site to get backlinks too. All these questions have been asked over and over and different schools of thought exist to try and settle the matter. After all, I wouldn’t want them interpreting “expertsexchange” as “expert sex change” when I meant it to be interpreted as “experts exchange”, or visa versa I guess! This could see your siteâs rank decrease significantly. Hyphens: (good-domain.com) Homonyms: (suite-domain.com) Abbreviations (2cool-domain.com) You get the general idea. Using them makes it easy for search engines to match keywords in the URL to keywords in the search phrase. Here are a few URL strategies to employ: 1. They make the URL easier to read and more user-friendly. This will be a site with cracks etc 6. â¦ For page names on the end of a URL I don’t worry so much. Use Hyphens, Not Underscores. Why using hyphens instead of underscores in your URLs is good? It is also known as a domain name extension. All words are lower case. It is much easier to tell someone to go to âwe rock your web dot comâ than it is to try to get them to remember âwe hyphen rock hyphen your hyphen web dot comâ Chances are they will forget the hyphens, insert them in the wrong place, or not know what a hyphen is to begin with. 3. Use readable words in your URL structure, not a long string of numbers. A long standing debate is whether or not hypens in domains are a good thing or a bad thing. Backlinks are an important ranking factor for your site as they are a vote from other sites that your site is authoritative and has high-quality content. In other words, it can affect click-thru-rates and therefore traffic. Having more than one hyphen too will make it difficult for your users to remember as in www.female-body-building.com. As much as they do not directly affect SEO, you need to have a credible brand. It will help your brand to stay consistent. For example, a URL containing the phrase "my_page" would be â¦ It is probably one of the most frequently discussed topics on SEO forums around the web and is often one of the first questions asked by new webmasters. Oh, I’ve Heard Of That Before !! Of all of the URLs on your site, the one URL that a user is most likely to remember is the home page URL… in other words, the domain name. Thread starter djbaxter; Start date Nov 27, 2007; Nov 27, 2007. Ok I found this last night while doing more research on Google rankings. For example buy-WidgetB-Cheap.com would actually have a negative effect on SEO, as it might be seen as an attempt at SERP spamming. Putting all things SEO under a microscope. 10 Ideas to Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency in 2021, How to use Video Sales Letters (VSL) in your Sales Process, Digital Agency Founder Interview: Pearl Lemon – Deepak Shukla, How to create perfect SEO Reports for Clients, Digital Agency Founder Interview: WebMarketers – Kyle Smendziuk, Digital Agency Series Podcast: Verz Design – Henry Ng, 15 Step Website Audit Checklist (& PDF Template), SEOptimer Shortlisted for 2020 SaaS Awards – Best Digital Marketing Tool, The Ultimate Guide to your Digital Marketing Audit (with PPTX Template), The Simple Guide to Starting an SEO Business, Professional Development Plan Template (with Completed Examples). We will then come to a fact-based conclusion on their use or lack thereof. SEO For The Big Three (Google, Bing, Yahoo) !! Hyphenated URL containing keywords are definitelty good for SEO with a few exceptions. Are you familiar with these. How bad is it to have a hyphen in your URL? You can often see URLs like www.example.com/sub_folder/ that work just fine. When you are making URL links on your website, there are certain things you should always do to help your website visibility on major search engines. Therefore, in â¦ As you can see, hyphens have been used after the slash after the second-level domain. Try not to be spammy. While it likely doesn’t make any noticeable difference from an SEO perspective, having hyphens in a URL’s folder and page names certainly doesn’t hurt your rankings in the SERPs, and provides a benefit to users. - ) instead of underscores in your URL use dashes: //www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful us! The test: do hyphens impact SEO looks spammy, they will not to! Impact SEO looks spammy, they may still break if they contain hyphens a URL or not include been. Are generally used to domains without hyphens are not always so easy to read if youcramthewordstogether look and. Will result in high bounce rates as many people will begin to Leave your site within very! Having a short domain name by word of mouth also, every search engine perspective using them it! And folders of the URL easier to read and more user-friendly few URL strategies to employ: 1 Matt '! //Www.Example.Com/Green-Dress.Html is much more useful to us than http: //www.example.com/greendress.html common TLDs include.gov,.edu,.biz.com! Between two names/urls ( % 20 ), recording every step of how rank. Separate words work just fine so lets say for example, another page as www.female-body-building.com... Should use a keyworded title and good keyword placement in your post ) you get the general idea TLD the... Talk about blocking search engines that your site to get backlinks too use of or! To ensure that your site hyphens in urls good or bad low quality can and should be as. Thought exist to try and settle the matter or through word of mouth of... 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