Separating words in URLS using hyphens vs. "no separator"
-
Does it matter if I use hyphens in URL versus. "no separation".
Ex
www.mysite.com/someproducts or
www.mysite.com/SomeProductsvs.
www.mysite.com/some-productsThe last is perhaps more readable by humans, but does it make any SEO difference using one or the other?
-
Love those examples, brightened up a Tuesday morninig.
-
This makes me wonder whether one can ever get extra mileage out of word merging, for SEO or branding purposes. keyphraSEOlogy.com sticks out in my mind...
-
Suggested title tag:therapist: You need it if you can't read it.
-
lets not forget - therapist.com
-
I know many people disagree with me on this one, but I would go big and get it fixed once and for all. The problem is only going to be worse when you get more content on the website.
Good luck with the work!
-
Agree - this is the issue. Especially the "space" separators definately needs fixing, so the question here is related to deciding the new strategy on this.
- thanks for taking the time to check it out :-).
-
Awesome. Love seeing real world examples.
-
Well. It's a lot of work and entails some risk to redirect many files. That being said, I have redirected thousands of URLs over the last couple of years and have yet to see it fail.
While it is a lot of work to change many URLs, I really appreciate consistency on a website, and prefer all URLs to follow the same structure. So I would probably redirect all the URLs.
I suppose you are working with the Bruel & Kjær website - and I can see there are several types of URLs now - no hyphens and with space as a separator. Adding yet another type of URLs will be at least somewhat confusing.
-
Exactly - Don't touch it. Start with new pages and you'll be fine. Even Google admits that 301 may not always pass all the goodness across.
-
If you already have a big structure running on a "no-separation" setup don't change it. The upside will not outweigh the potential disruption you cause. Do it for your new pages only.
-
My real reason for asking the question is, that I have a rather large site using the "no separation" method, and I wonder if it is worth the effort to change it.
So - I think hypenation is better for readability, but it will be quite a job to do it propertly, so I'm not sure if changing to hypenation it is worth it or not (with 301'ing etc).
I'm leaning towards using it for new pages (except this make the site look somewhat inconsistent).
-
The difference in interpretation by search engines will not be huge, but it's still worth sticking to the more readable hyphenated version. Also you don't risk the search engines misreading some urls due to new unwanted words forming from other words in a "no separation" scenario.
-
Hi there
There won't be any first order SEO difference. But there are some second order benefits to the hyphened URLs. As they are more readable by humans, they tend to be clicked more often in SERPs and gain more natural links.
Best,
Thomas
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
-
Using Brand Descriptions
We have an online site with approximately 800 products. When we add new products we typically use the photos and product description provided by the brand. The problem is there are numerous other sites using the same descriptions. All other content on the site is original. Is having small blocks of content that are the same on multiple sites likely to cause problems with Google?
Content Development | | twitime0 -
Is there an upper bound on the number of links an url might get in a day?
There are link spammers and programs like GSA and others, that automate linkbuilding, and I was wondering if anybody ever had a penalty because a page on his site is getting too many references (links). I am not talking about spamming here. So provided that the links are coming from relevant, unique sources, but you do an over excessive campaign, and you seem to be getting too many backlinks, can it negatively affect SEO? Alternatively: is there an upper bound on the number of links you try to build in a day when you are doing linkbuilding?
Content Development | | snetface0 -
Writing on 2 Very Separate Topics. Will Authorship Be Affected?
Hi guys, During the day I'm a PPC and SEO associate at a software company that provides merchant accounts and payment processing for small business owners. Think PayPal meets Quickbooks. For this job, I write lots of content on payment processing, merchant accounts, the benefits of ACH transfers, etc. However, during the evenings, I work on my side-business, which is a fitness marketing company. For this site I'm doing lots of content production based on increasing gym membership, crossfit marketing, etc. I'm getting authorship for all of the posts I'm writing (my image is showing up in SERPs). Do you guys think there is any adverse effects to having authorship on content that is so drastically different? Will Google punish us for having 50% of my posts are about merchant accounts and the other 50% are about fitness marketing? Thanks!
Content Development | | SmallBizSmarts0 -
The rel="alternate" tag
Hey guys and gals. So I run a hyperlocal blog and get a heap of press releases sent to me daily. I don't have time to rewrite each one before posting it to the website, so I am aware that I am duplicating content and possibly extracting link juice from the original source. Would using the rel="alternate" tag highlighting the source on each press release page fix this? Am I correct in saying this tag tells google that the content on the page is sourced from elsewhere? I also get requests from other sites for my original posts to be posted on their websites but I decline because of duplicate content, would asking for this same ' the rel="alternate" tag' fix on their website be wise? Thanks in advance JC
Content Development | | jonnycraft0 -
How much do you pay for a 300+ word blog article?
I am considering outsourcing some of the blog writing and would like to get some idea of what is a reasonable amount to pay someone for writing say a 300-350 word article? Also any recommendations on where to find good writers? Thanks!
Content Development | | Clicksjim0 -
Using syndicated content / videos
Hi all, We are looking at using some syndicated video content on our main category pages. We are an pharmacy and offer prescription medicines (Yes we are NHS registered and no we don't sell generic products). I want to use the videos to increase the UX for the category pages and increase stickiness......however i am a little worried about how Google will see this. We don't have the time or budget to create our own videos but the rest of the content around them is all ours. The videos are provided by the NHS so they are good quality content and should add value to the consumer. Will big G stiff us for doing this?
Content Development | | nicc19760 -
Blog for SEO: embedded in the site or separate
Hello, For both ecommerce and sites that sell services, I've seen a lot of people recommending a blog for SEO. Should this blog be inside or separate from the main website for the most results? I can see how adding one to a site would create more unique content and an opportunity for link bait, but perhaps there is a reason to have a blog separate from the main site Thank you.
Content Development | | BobGW1 -
Premium Themes Use or Not?
I am just curious if any of you use the premium themes such as Genesis or Thesis, if so why did you move to those themes? Also what is the real benefit to one of those themes? I know both claim to help with SEO, but I can't really understand exactly how other than the code may be more efficient.
Content Development | | copykatrecipes0