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Aug 25th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Click to Expand / Collapse  Quote originally posted by nyashaC ...
For example buy-WidgetB-Cheap.com would actually have a negative effect on SEO, as it might be seen as an attempt at SERP spamming.

If you see yourself having more than one hyphen STOP!
That's not true. There are lots of webpages, mostly articles and blog entries, that have a lot of hyphens in their URLs and they rank very well. The whole, "too many hyphens means spam" thing is a myth.
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stymiee is offline Offline
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Aug 26th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Apparently, having "-" in the URL is a very good thing, unlike having "_".

If you consider...
http://www.my-cat-and-mat-site.com/t...sat/on-the-mat
http://www.mycatandmatsite.com/thecatsat/onthemat
http://www.mycatandmatsite.com/the_cat_sat/on_the_mat

Okay... basically the same information, but with/without - or _.

Now it appears that Google will look at Hyphenated words as indiviudal words.
Thus my-cat-and-mat-site can be read as...
my cat and mat site
... and thats about it.

It will read conjoined words as individual words, but will interpret the space/break that fits the search pattern.
Thus mycatandmatsite could be read as ...
my cat and mat site
my catan mats it
myca tan atsi
... more conotations - but that doesn't score any more points!


As for the page titles etc... the Underscore is a major pain. Though in a way it is fantastic if someone types in the title of the page... but if they only enter in partially matching terms, it seems that you will not get the same scoring.
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autocrat is offline Offline
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Aug 26th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Click to Expand / Collapse  Quote originally posted by autocrat ...
Apparently, having "-" in the URL is a very good thing, unlike having "_".

If you consider...
http://www.my-cat-and-mat-site.com/t...sat/on-the-mat
http://www.mycatandmatsite.com/thecatsat/onthemat
http://www.mycatandmatsite.com/the_cat_sat/on_the_mat

Okay... basically the same information, but with/without - or _.

Now it appears that Google will look at Hyphenated words as indiviudal words.
Thus my-cat-and-mat-site can be read as...
my cat and mat site
... and thats about it.

It will read conjoined words as individual words, but will interpret the space/break that fits the search pattern.
Thus mycatandmatsite could be read as ...
my cat and mat site
my catan mats it
myca tan atsi
... more conotations - but that doesn't score any more points!


As for the page titles etc... the Underscore is a major pain. Though in a way it is fantastic if someone types in the title of the page... but if they only enter in partially matching terms, it seems that you will not get the same scoring.
Google just announced that underscores will have the same effect as dashes so this will no longer be true in the very near future.
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stymiee is offline Offline
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Aug 27th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Thank god for that!

I've made 2 topics and sent 3 emails... no official response at all from them... but maybe they do listen to people after all.
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autocrat is offline Offline
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Aug 30th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Quote ...
Google just announced that underscores will have the same effect as dashes so this will no longer be true in the very near future.
Good news for those who loves using dashes.
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x3mario is offline Offline
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since Aug 2007
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Aug 31st, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Click to Expand / Collapse  Quote originally posted by x3mario ...
Good news for those who loves using dashes.
I think you mean underscores.
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stymiee is offline Offline
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Aug 31st, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

We have some URL with underscores, and I had read that dashes were better for SEO.

I am glad to hear that I was sure if we were going to have to fix those. Hopefully that gets implemented soon.

Great post.
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KeyDegree is offline Offline
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since Aug 2007
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Sep 4th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Yes, but mostly I think the file names for eg. words.words/words_42.jpg is better than words.words/wrods-45.jpg.


Steve
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beamup is offline Offline
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Sep 4th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Click to Expand / Collapse  Quote originally posted by beamup ...
Yes, but mostly I think the file names for eg. words.words/words_42.jpg is better than words.words/wrods-45.jpg.


Steve
Unfortunately the opposite is true. Dashes are better then underscores. All search engines recognize dashes as a keyword separator but Google doesn't yet recognize underscores as a keyword separator.
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stymiee is offline Offline
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Sep 18th, 2007
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Re: are hyphenated url names good or bad?

Do you think its worth redoing all domain names with underscores to change them to domains with dashes?
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ColoradoGrl is offline Offline
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This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
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