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
-
SEO on dynamic website
Hi. I am hoping you can advise. I have a client in one of my training groups and their site is a golf booking engine where all pages are dynamically created based on parameters used in their website search. They want to know what is the best thing to do for SEO. They have some landing pages that Google can see but there is only a small bit of text at the top and the rest of the page is dynamically created. I have advised that they should create landing pages for each of their locations and clubs and use canonicals to handle what Google indexes.Is this the right advice or should they noindex? Thanks S
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bedynamic0 -
Pagination & SEO
Hi We have automatically created brand pages based on which brand they have in their attributes. At the moment, developers have restricted the ability to properly optimise these for SEO, but I also wanted to look at how we should handle pagination. Example: http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/manutan?page=1 http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/manutan?page=2 http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/manutan?page=3 Should we do any of the following - which I've found in an article: Put no follow on all links located on pagination pages Should we no index these pages as they are wasting crawl budget? - Don’t show links to page 2, 3, 4, 5… 10, 11, 12… at the end of your content but only a link to the next and previous pages so that you won’t dilute your page authority. Or does anyone else have any tips on how to handle these pages? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Low Domain Authority
Hi Our Domain Authority has dropped recently from 29 > 23 - which is really low. I wondered if anyone had any ideas of why this might be? http://www.key.co.uk/en/key I'm seeing ranking/traffic improvements for SEO & I'm not currently building any bad backlinks, I did a sweep to Disavow any bad ones last Oct. I am planning to add good quality links, but is there anything else I can do to improve the authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Changing Domain Host and Potential SEO Effects
Hi Community, We are currently thinking of changing our domain hosting package and I am wondering if that could have any effects on rankings, SEO, etc. The thing here is that we aren't changing the hosting provider, we are only changing the package from the same provider. Most of the info I have found on the internet has been mostly about changing actual hosting providers versus packages from the same provider (if the makes sense). If anyone knows if this might affect our SEO and what steps we can take to safe guard against any potential pitfalls, please let us know. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brian_Dowd0 -
SEO Experts: Where did you start?
Hi all! I'm beginning to travel down the road of becoming an SEO expert! I've attended the latest few webinars on Moz, and have started watching the White Board Fridays. However I'm wondering, for the current SEO Experts, how did you get to where you are today? I.e. What books did you read? Did you pay for classes or just learn everything from Moz? Where is a good place to get an SEO Expert Certification/Is it necessary? How long did it take you to become an expert? (Stuff like that) I suppose I'm looking to make a list for myself, organizing what I should learn first, and then create a timeline moving forward. Thanks for your help Mozzers! - Briana B.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JCWhelan13 -
Lower quality new domain link vs higher quality repeat domain link
First time poster here with a dilemma that head scratching and spreadsheets can't solve! I'm trying to work out whether to focus on getting links from new domains or to nurture relationships with the bigger sites in our business and get more links. Of the two links below which does the community here think would be more valuable a signal to Google? Both would be links from within relevant text/post copy. Link 1. Site DA 30. No links currently from this domain. Link 2. Site DA 60. Many links over last 12 months already from this domain. I suspect link 1 but given the enormous disparity in ranking power am I correct?! Thanks for any considered opinions out there! Matthew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
Suggestions for a cost effective, SEO safe domain that was previously penalised
Hi, I will try to explain my situation as clearly as I can, and any positive advise would be greatly appreciated. Obviously please let me know if you have any questions but I'm sorry the domains are private. I started by business 4 years ago and launched a website (site A) and worked hard to promote it in the best way I knew how. It brought in a good income for around 3 years but then was hit with some sort of google penalty/filter! Knowing then what I know now would probably of avoided the problem altogether but that's another story... So I brought another domain (site B) and started again with a new design and completely re-branded the company, and again have been working hard to promote it. It has been preforming well and there has been steady progress 😉 However since then I have been steadily promoting the penalised site (site A) and keeping an eye on it to see if the penalty/filter may be lifted. It had initially lost around 75% of traffic, but recently has been doing much better in SERPS and is again on the increase. My problem is that with my company now being completely re branded I want to keep consistency but (site A) looks old and dated compared the new one (site B) and I don’t want to be confusing users etc... So I need a cost efficient and “safe” solution to this in terms of SEO and budget. 301 Redirect to site B I thought of a 301 redirect “BUT” I'm concerned about the penalty/filter being passed onto the new site (site B) and have read this dose happen ? Complete Redesign/brand for site A This would probably be the best option except I'm limited on funds. I would need “another” full commerce site as its just way to much money at the moment. Remove site A completely Funds are tight and I'm still feeling the affects of the penalty so really can't afford to loose any traffic at all! Use site A as a micro-site I thought a micro site with just the main product landing pages being used. I would use the same design as site B, then re-write the text and then link everything to the new site. “BUT” I'm concerned about getting another penalty (duplicate) as all the anchor text links going to site B site would be identical! EG. To use the same design as site B I would need to use the same layout etc including navbars, anchor text links in the footer etc.. and I'm worried this may trigger a duplicate content penalty ? I hope there are some suggestion for my situation and thanks in advance for your help. Thanks Chris.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | doorguy880 -
Is DOCTYPE important for SEO?
Hello fellow Mozzers. I am just having a brief look at a potential clients website before speaking to them tomorrow and whilst looking at the source I noticed that they don't appear to have a clear definition for their Doctype. All the have at the top of each page is I have to admit that Doctypes aren't my strong point but I know that they are normally slightly more descriptive than this. Can this have any effect on rankings? or is this just an issue for W3C validation? Thanks 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis0