Hyphen domain effect SEO?
-
Hi Guys,
I am looking to buy some domain that have the keyword I want in - but my question is;
Does using hypehns in a domain effect your SEO?
Thanks
Gareth
-
-
Hi
We've been using all kinds of domain endings including .co.uk, .uk.net and even .co, it doesn't seem to hurt ctr massively, what it can hurt is people coming back to site, people will forget a domain ending and, if you're uk based, assume it was .co.uk or .com. This is what happens in my experience.
-
Hi Matt
Thank you for your answer..
Glad to hear that using 1 hyphen wont make much difference..
Do you think it matters if I use the UK.NET domain if I am using the website for the UK??
-
Hi Matt
Thank you for your answer..
Glad to hear that using 1 hyphen wont make much difference..
Do you think it matters if I use the UK.NET domain if I am using the website for the UK??
-
There is no penalty as such for having a single hyphen in a domain. There are some related considerations though:
Is the domain likely to cause any confusion? Depending on how you are marketing the site a hyphenated domain can be a pain. Trust me: The main domain I have used for the last 16 years has a hyphen. I get very bored of spelling it out and having the whole "Dash.. no dash - a hypen. Like a minus sign... no that's an underscore" conversation on the phone.
If the non hypenated version of the same is being used for anything similar that can present bigger issues.
Also, hyphenated domains can look more spammy or "low rent", although that isn't usually a big issue with a single hyphen in the name. However it could potentially have a small impact on click through rates in some sectors.
However, short answer is "not really".
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
BetterWidget or Better Widget? Brand name effect on SEO
I have a company that produces widgets. People generally search for "widget". I need to decide how to brand my company. Stylistically, I like BetterWidget, but I worry about the effects on SEO. If people are commonly searching for "widget", and my page title contains "BetterWidget", but no other use of the term, that may have a negative effect. 1. Is Google able to parse through these joined words? (this is similar but distinct from the discussion on common compound words like ice cream) 2. Does capitalization of the second "word" in the joined word help signal to Google that these are two terms joined together? 3. On the flip side, is there a negative effect from not having a unique "brand". In other words, articles that are about my company Better Widget may seem to google just to be about better widgets in general. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | galenweber1 -
Sub Domain or New Domain?
Hi All, We have a client that has a business with three different services. 2 of these services compliment each other in a really obvious way, but the 3rd, while related is not such a obvious complimentary service. For this reason, service 3 kind of weakens the content of the website SEO wise for the two main services. Also, internally at the business it is run by an entirely different team so it feels culturally somewhat different. So, the client wants to pull all the content about service 3 and put it on a different website. Which would you chose as a domain for this new site: service3.existingdomain.co.uk or www.service3+brandname.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoisyLittleMonkey0 -
The format for image SEO
Hi there. After looking at a few SEO videos relating to image SEO it seems important to ensure images are SEO'd just as well as pages. I however have a question. If the page is Meta titles the following: Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech And this particular page contains five images which are each variants of this product, how is it best to SEO them? Would you go with the: Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Front Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Back Online for Equine | Riding Clothing | Just Togs Latina Ladies Breech Side and so on... Or would this result in keyword stuffing with Google's new over-optimisation rules. Would it be better to rename them so they are all individual? I am considering deleting the images, renaming them on the server as the SEO proof name and then re-uploading them so the Image caption = filename. Am I on the right track? If you need the page: http://www.onlineforequine.co.uk/jodhpurs-breeches/22-just-togs-ladies-latina-denim-breech.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlineforequine0 -
Canonical URL redirect to different domain - SEO benefits?
Hello Folks, We are having a SEO situation here, and hope your support will help us figure out that. Let's say there are two different domains www.subdomian.domianA.com and www.domainB.com. subdomain.domainA is what we want to promote and drive SEO traffic. But all our content lies in domainB. So one of the thoughts we had is to duplicate the domainB's content on subdomian.domainA and have a canonical URL redirect implemented. Questions: Will subdomain.domainA.com get indexed in search engines for the content in domainB by canonical redirect? Do we get the SEO benefits? So is there any other better way to attain this objective? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NortonSupportSEO0 -
If we add noindex to a subdomain, will the traffic to that subdomain still generate domain authority for the primary domain?
We are trying to decide whether a password protected site, that we will noindex, should be set up as a subdomain or if it should be its own domain. The determining factor here is whether or not having that noindexed subdomain will increase domain authority since its noindexed. Any ideas???
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grayloon0 -
Critique My Site For SEO
Hi Everyone, I was wondering if someone might critique my site and let me know what you think. I've done pretty much everything I know to do proper seo for my site. I'd love to hear some critiques about what I am doing wrong. I'm not sure if my titles are okay, being that they are similar amongst pages. The other thing is that for all the javascript buttons on the top I have no followed them since they don't have any anchor text. The way google will crawl my page is through the links in the footer. I was thinking of moving them throughout the body of the page since I hear google isn't giving as much weight to footer links. I also wanted to hear what you think about putting a blog on my site and updating with fresh content as opposed to creating a separate blog and then linking back to my website with anchor text. Thanks for all the help. And glad to be a member Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wsh150 -
Exact domain or subfolder?
If I am targeting a specific keyword, from an SEO perspective is it better to create a subfolder on a url that has some authority or is it better use the exact domain with no authority? For example, if I want to target the word 'widgets' which is the better choice and why? **Choice 1: ** www.domainwithauthority.com/widgets Note: this domain has 1000 links to it **Choice 2: ** www.widgets.com Note: this is a brand new domain with 0 links
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mnipko0 -
Recovery during domain migration
On average, how long does it takes to recover 80% of the rankings if two high authority domains are combined without chaging any content? I totally understand that each domain is different and search engines can treat them differently but if all the steps are followed to the T what are the chances?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ninjamarketer1