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  4. Double hyphen in URL - bad?

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Double hyphen in URL - bad?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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  • CFSSEO
    CFSSEO last edited by Feb 2, 2015, 10:00 PM

    Instead of a URL such as domain.com/double-dash/  programming wants to use domain.com/double--dash/ for some reason that makes things easier for them.

    Would a double dash in the URL have a negative effect on the page ranking?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • ECN
      ECN last edited by Jun 18, 2015, 10:13 PM Jun 18, 2015, 10:13 PM

      Indeed.com uses the double hyphen in their URL scheme and it certainly doesn't seem to hurt them.  I Imagine this is due to being able to reconstitute this back from URL rewriting so they know the difference between a dash in the URL that replaces a "space" vs a -- which would reconstitute back to a dash.

      Example:q-Tennis-Channel-jobs.html

      Maps back to the company Tennis Channel

      Example: /cmp/Sag--aftra

      Maps back to the company Sag-Aftra

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,5 months
      • CFSSEO
        CFSSEO @RyanPurkey last edited by Feb 3, 2015, 3:47 PM Feb 3, 2015, 3:47 PM

        LOL I love it.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RyanPurkey
          RyanPurkey @EGOL last edited by Feb 3, 2015, 3:45 PM Feb 3, 2015, 3:45 PM

          Or make the Keurig sessions min-value:10 every day until this is solved.

          CFSSEO 1 Reply Last reply Feb 3, 2015, 3:47 PM Reply Quote 1
          • EGOL
            EGOL last edited by Feb 3, 2015, 2:23 PM Feb 3, 2015, 2:23 PM

            I would tell programming that their access to the Keurig is invalid until they get this figured out.

            RyanPurkey 1 Reply Last reply Feb 3, 2015, 3:45 PM Reply Quote 2
            • Bio-RadAbs
              Bio-RadAbs last edited by Feb 3, 2015, 2:17 PM Feb 3, 2015, 2:17 PM

              • Have you seen websites use double dashes?

              A single dash has become norm and users read it and use it that way, but a double dash is outside the norm in my opinion and you could end up with a lot of incorrect backlinks. A customer might type the URL with a single dash and end up with a 404 page for instance.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • RyanPurkey
                RyanPurkey last edited by Feb 3, 2015, 1:38 AM Feb 3, 2015, 1:38 AM

                Hyphens are a very common convention in folder names, and while too many can possibly be a negative in a domain name (it-is-a-really-hyphenated-domain.com for example) they're an accepted practice in folder / file names.

                One thing I'd ask though is if someone had a hyphen in their folder name to begin with, would that cause something like /double-----dash--becomes--quintuple--dash/ ?  If so I'd ask them to try a little harder to get the dashes down to a minimum, just for the sake of keeping the URL shorter overall.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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