Using hyphenated sub-domains or non-hyphenated sub-domains? What is the question! I Any takers?
-
For our corporate business level domain, we are exploring using a hyphenated sub-domain foir a project.
Something like www.go-figure.extreme.com
I thought from a user perspective it seems cluttered. The domain length might also be an issue with the new Algorithm big G has launched in recent past.
I know with past experience, hyphenated domains usually take longer to index, as they are used by spammers more frequently and can take longer to get out of the supplementary index.
Our company site has over 90 million viewers / year, so our brand is well established and traffic isn't an issue. This is for a corporate level project and I didn't have the answer!
Will this work? anyone have any experience testing this. Any thoughts will help!
Thanks, Rob
-
I agree - it was Google itself that suggested hyphenating keywords in url's.
Example - I was just using the Moz keyword tool on a site named sellmybusinesscolorado.com. The search term it was tuned to was "sell business colorado". The tool, and so likely the bots, did not recognize those very words in that long URL. Had it been hyphenated - they would have been recognized.
What brought me here was - is hyphenating, itself, non kosher in a sub domain? Thomas, coincidentally - the subdomain I was pondering is pest-control.straza.com. He is a business broker that sells a lot of pest control businesses. I also would do medical.straza.com. These subs will deal with their namesakes as if they were the only businesses they sell.
Google recognizes the hyphen as the universal word separator. I stopped using underbars ten years ago - a nasty habit I learned from programmers.
I think it is more the ABUSE of a good thing, as it always is, that should be avoided.
........... I didn't name that site, by the way ;-]
-
I agree (FWIW)
-
There will be no SEO fall out due to hyphen.
It's a personal preference.
I like: footballsport.mysite.com
I don't like: football-sport.mysite.com
No hyphen just seems to be more common. Users may get confused only upon remembering the subdomain. "uh... I think there is a silent hyphen in that URL...??? Or was it no hyphen?"
So if you use football-sport.mysite.com then redirect footballsport.mysite.com to football-sport.mysite.com.
-
Thanks. It was a little of both in terms of concerns. I didn't want indexing issues, and the hyphen just threw me off - as well as it impacting the usability of the page. As long as they hyphen will work in the sub-domain I'm good to go. I didn't want any issues later Thanks to all who replied!
-
I suppose that we're not understanding your concern. Is the concern over incorporating a keyword or is the question about whether a hyphen has negative consequences?
If it's a keyword issue you can use keyword.example.com or key-word.example.com. No difference from an SEO perspective. It's more about convenience/usability (ease of conveying the address via various media).
I doubt that one dash will cause indexation/ranking issues. I don't see this as an issue.
-
this is actuallly for the sub-domain, not the primary domain.
so football.mysite.com as opposed to something like football-sport.mysite.com
It's the hyphen that's throwing me out of whack..
Ideas? and thanks for the insights~!!
-
Sorry - should have said "not very friendly!"
-
You shouldn't experience any problems with a hyphen in the domain name. Exact Match domains seem to rank better, but most likely not directly associated with the exact match but the domain history and content. Even with a hyphen you get a close match. I have seen hyphen domains rank just fine.
The only concern I would have is consistency within the domain name. You may throw of users by adding a hyphen to an unhyphenated domain. Personally I would opt against using the hyphen. People have learned to read through domain names at this point.
If you do go with the hyphen make sure you redirect the unhyphenated version to the hyphenated version.
-
I agree. I'm still on the fence about the hyphenated sub-domain. I can't find too many sites that actually practice this technique. i'm looking for some references online.
This domain won't be spoken over the phone, and from a usability perspective, but very flashy r friendly.
I wanted to use something like say football.mysite.com instead of football-sport.mycompany.com
i'm still perplexed!! LOL
-
Avoid multiple hyphens (eg key-word-stuffed-subdomain.example.com). Your example only has one-not a concern. The SEs are able to read domains/subdomains with spacers or not. Not a concern there either. In the example you've provided, the issue is more about usability. If you ever have to speak a URL over the phone it'll be much easier without the dash.
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
-
General questions about implementing hreflang using XML sitemap
I created another thread regarding hreflang sitemaps. However, this one is more general and doesn't cover multiple sitemaps for different localizations so I think it's reasonable creating a new thread. We are trying to implement hreflang using XML sitemap. We have localized content for a few countries, but only 1/3 of the content is 'duplicate' localized content. How should this be presented in the sitemap? Can we have some urls with hreflang-tags and some without? Also, where should this be located? In the usual sitemap file at site.com/sitemap.xml or should we create a different sitemap site.com/hreflang.xml where we just paste all hreflang-info? And if it should be in /hreflang.xml - can we have the same URL twice (in both current sitemap and hreflang sitemap)?
Technical SEO | | Telsenome0 -
Forwarding a .org domain to a .com domain: any negative impact to consider?
Hello! I have a question I've been unable to find a clear answer to. My client's primary domain is a .com with a satisfactorily high DA. My client owns the .org version of its domain (which has a very low DA, I suppose due to inactivity) but has never forwarded it on. For branding/visibility/traffic reasons, I'd like to recommend they set up the .org domain to forward to the .com domain, but I wanted to ask a few questions first: 1. Does forwarding low-value DA domains to high-value DA domains have any negative authority/SEO impact? 2. If the .org domain was to be forwarded, am I correct that an SSL cert is not necessary for it if the .com domain has an SSL cert? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | mollykathariner_ms1 -
How can you best use additional domains with important keywords
Currently I have a corporate website that is ranking all right. However, I have some additional domains containing import search terms that I would like to use to get higher rankings for the corporate website, or allow these domains to generate more traffic for the corporate website. What are best practice in using these domains with keyword terms, to make most use of them, for ideally both ranking as well as generating additional traffic. All input is highly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | moojoo0 -
Keyword domain usage
Hi I have a client who wants some advice on the following and I haven't come up with anything decent yet. So wanted to throw it out here. They own a domain like soccershoes.com which also houses their web site. They have now bought ussoccershoes.com because this US based search term is more popular than simply soccer shoes. How can they utilise this new domain effectively to drive traffic to their main web site? Thanks for any input.
Technical SEO | | yolkcreative0 -
More than one web domain
Hi What is best when considering using more than one domain on a website, what the best policy ? it's a question I get asked a lot, usually because prior to any seo efforts the main domain name purchased is not keyword rich or an abbreviated company name etc. what impact do new domains have on SEO compared to older existing domains- is it worth changing a generic company named domain for a keyword rich domain? if having multiple domains pointing to the site is beneficial how best is it to configure? How do i inform Google? How do both domains get index when there is only one physical site? How should i monitor it, Analytic s, SEO moz? Will the domain compete against each other and effect SEO rank? Are they best used for marketing purposes on external sites, adverts driving traffic to the main site. I'm aware there are lots of questions above, any answers/ opinions , links to further info would be greatly appreciated. cheers
Technical SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
An Easy Question - Backlinks
Hi guys, I know this is an easy question and I'm already quite sure of the answer for it but it would be good to get some other views. This website - http://www.collapso.net/ have 261,923 backlinks to our website according to Ahrefs. They have 1000's of pages like this - http://www.collapso.net/countiesnew/Cork.html which link to our site. 43.95% of the backlinks to our site are from these guys but we've been fortunate enough to never receive any warnings via WMT or ever experienced drop offs in traffic. My question is - Do we have this site remove all the links to our site or leave them alone? Given there's such a large quantity of links, I'm not exactly sure what the impact would be on us. My instinct says get rid of them. Although part of me questions what such a massive drop in our link profile would look like to Google.
Technical SEO | | MarkScully0 -
How can I use a keyword based domain to rank for my existing site?
Hi everyone, From my understanding if your keywords are in your domain name it can help you rank for the keyword. My site www.pixelchefs.com was affected from the latest Google Algorithm changes, as I used my main site as a testing ground for all my back linking. Our site was a single page with Jquery slide, late February the same time with the Google algo changes we uploaded our new site, larger site with lots of pages and info. Result of that was that home page has PR3 and all other pages PR0. Well I don't really depend on Google for any work as most of my work comes from referrals.......but While searching for names for my private page I came across the domain name www.DesignOrlando.com, The specific keyword gets 22,210 view per month according to Google analytics and also contains part of the keyword for all the keywords I am after. I want to use the domain name for my main site but i am not sure what is the best way to forward the domain so Google can start reading my site as DesignOrlando.com Any Suggestions will be very appreciated.
Technical SEO | | alex_pixelchefs0 -
Redirecting a domain
I was setting up a new campaign and received the following error from Roger Robot. "We have detected that the domain www.sitename.com and the domain sitename.com both respond to web requests and do not redirect. Having two "twin" domains that both resolve forces them to battle for SERP positions, making your SEO efforts less effective. We suggest redirecting one, then entering the other here." I know about redirecting a PAGE using 301 Redirects and how to specify the www. canonical in Google webmaster tools, but is there a "DOMAIN" redirect that I'm missing. What would you suggest doing given the error message above. Thanks, Bill Sqnch.jpg
Technical SEO | | Marvo0