Use - or not for domain names
-
Hi there what is the best type of domain name if i have a keyword im targetting. Lets use 'very cool' as an example:
I am led to believe the .co.uk would be better in a UK index. I also got told - count as a space, therefore the best one above for Google UK is www.very-cool.co.uk ?
-
Normaly I hear without, but have not seen any conclusive studys. I normaly see the non - outranking the same phrase with, but thats antidotal evidence.
This is where I would go with best practices for usability/branding, where at the very least short urls tend to work better.
Having an exact match via -'s can also look spammy at times. Though that might just be because of the sheer number of spammy sites that do.
-
Thanks everyone. Putting usability aside is it better seo for the - or without?
-
Hi Paul,
From personal experience I would say get the TLD that is relevant to you, so if you want to rank on Google.co.uk I would go with www.verycool.co.uk. Of course ultimately you can rank in other languages but as standard practice we always start with the local extension that is most important to us
-
If your /just/ targeting the UK, all the advice I have seen, along with the expectation is a .co.uk.
Personaly, I would avoid -'s in the url just due to the sheer number of people who struggle to work out which is the right 'line thing'.
-
Hi pauledwards
for this example, i'll use www.verycool.com. It's better not to use -, because google finds your keyword as well if you write all off your words together. And .com is allways a better option than .*.uk.
you can selected your target area at google webmasters tools.
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
-
What is the relationship between inbound links and linking domains?
In doing competitor research, there's a specific competitor that has fewer linking domains, but dramatically more inbound links. How do these two relate to each other? I do have a higher domain authority and more internal followed links with them having more internal nofollow and external (both follow and nofollow) links. I'm trying to understand how they can have 3.7k linking domains and 4.8 million inbound links while I have 4.1k linking domains and only 601k inbound links. What really defines an inbound link and what's there relationship between inbound links and linking domains?
Competitive Research | | grayloon0 -
What tool can I use to find the top traffic-driving keyword for a batch of pages from multiple sites?
I thought I might be able to use Ahref's Batch Analysis for this, but that just gives stats on backlinks. I have a several lists of thousands of pages scraped for particular sets of keywords, but what I need is some way to automate fetching the biggest keyword that each page ranks for - biggest being the keyword that is estimated to drive the most organic traffic. Is there a tool out there that does something like this?
Competitive Research | | helenlorettahasan0 -
Domain Name Keyword Change
Hello. I have a question. I currently have a client who is exploring the option of changing his domain name to one which includes a key word and his company name. Currently he is using a domain name which does not include a keyword and does not include his company name. I understand that with proper redirects we can keep a significant amount of the juice behind it and we aren't so concerned about the domain name change. However my clients only concern is this. His company and new domain have the words Best Buy in it. He is concerned about the words best buy being in the domain name as it would be directly competing with the electronics giants. Should this even be a concern? He isn't in the electronics business and the remaining of the domain would include a keyword which directly relates to his business. Any input would be appreciated.
Competitive Research | | Imagination0 -
Domain Authority
Why do I have low domain authority and what steps can I take to improve it?
Competitive Research | | cbeuoy0 -
When providing search results for SEO purposes to you use the exact results in Google Adwords
Hi Mozzers Just quick question When an SEO company are supplying their testimonials for example
Competitive Research | | mcliddy
Keyword Search Term has 33,000 visits a month
Keywords is in position 1 but the search volume they are showing is broad, i was always brought up to do research on exact results unless im using the reserch for a PPC campagin? Has anyone got any ideas?? should it be braod im looking at or exact?? Many Thanks Matt0 -
Domain Authority Question
So in looking at my first campaign with 3 of my top competitors, I have a domain authority of 65, and my competitors are 31, 43, and 38 and yet all of them outrank me by quite a bit. How can I take this research and make some sense of it to beat them in rankings? Thanks!
Competitive Research | | azguy0 -
Has anyone used this tool
Has anyone used this tool? http://uk.seoguardian.com/ Thoughts on accuracy etc Cheers
Competitive Research | | CraigAddyman0 -
Is there a tool that could list all high PR pages of a domain?
Is there a tool that could list all high PR pages of a domain? Ideally, non subscripton based but if the tool is awesome then I wouldn't hesitate forking out for it.
Competitive Research | | rmteamseo0