Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
To hyphenate or not to hyphenate?
-
Quick question: does Google differentiate between terms that correctly include a hyphen (such as "royalty-free") and those that are incorrect ("royalty free")?
I ask because the correct term "royalty-free"(with a hyphen) receives far less monthly traffic for the same term without the hyphen (according to Moz):
Term | Estimated traffic
"royalty free music" | 11.5-30.3K
"royalty-free music" | 501-850If Moz views the terms separately then I'd guess that Google does too, in which case the best thing to do for SEO (and increased site traffic) would be to wrongly use "royalty free" without the hyphen. Is that correct?
-
you could always search in Google and compare the ranking of the page. If the same url's get there in the same order = no difference. If there is a difference you could consider using some variation on your site.
Most easy: use what you consider to be right en build great content. Google will find this very small difference out.
-
Not trying to play it an expert.
From my experience, writing "royalty-free music" in your website will rank you for both "royalty-free music" and "royalty free music".
The opposite is not always true but i'm saying that having in mind forms such as "webhosting" and "web hosting". For instance, writing "webhosting" won't necessarily rank me as high as "web hosting" would.
Weird thing is that one particular SEO tool suggested us the use of the "webhosting" form too apart from "web hosting" (which is quite odd for English speakers). Of course, when we tested it out, it didn't work well in the rankings .
Don't know if your case with a dash will work though.
So in such cases i always tend to use the most searched form.
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
-
Google Index Issue
2 months ago, I registered a domain named www.nextheadphone.com I had a plan to learn SEO and create a affiliate blog site. In my website I had 3 types of content. Informative Articles Headphone Review articles Product Comparision Review articles Problem is, Google does not index my informative articles. I dont know the reasons. https://www.nextheadphone.com/benefits-of-noise-cancelling-headphones/
Content Development | | NextHeadphone
https://www.nextheadphone.com/noise-cancelling-headphones-protect-hearing/ Is there anyone who can take a look and find the issues why google is not indexing my articles? I will be waiting for your reply0 -
Ranking going south
Hi - I have a site Simply Stairlifts and I don't understand it but I've followed all the SEO processes of cleaning the site and building links, but ranking just keeps falling - any advise would be very gratefully received 👍 .
SEO Tactics | | Naju2310 -
How to rank a website in different countries
I have a website which I want to rank in UK, NZ and AU and I want to keep my domain as .com in all the countries. I have specified the lang=en now what needs to be done to rank one website in 3 different English countries without changing the domain extension i.e. .com.au or .com.nz
SEO Tactics | | Ravi_Rana0 -
When to re-write and redirect a blog url?
What are best practices for rewriting (and then redirecting) blog URLs? I refresh old blog posts on our blog every month and many of them have URLs that are too long or could be improved. However, many of them also already get decent organic traffic and I don't want to lose traffic due to a URL redirect. Are there any best practices or "rules" I can follow when deciding whether to re-write and redirect blog URLs?
Content Development | | Emily.R.Monrovia
Thanks!0 -
Unsolved SEO And Digital Marketing Training
Hi Everyone, I have a basic SEO and Digital Marketing knowledge and looking for a course /training which will teach me step by step SEO and tools need to use with hand on training. I have a website (https://gemslearninginstitute.com/) which I need bring in Google Packs and on the first page of Google. I have attended a few courses but none of them offered in depth knowledge with hands on training so whatever I do it is not producing results. Thanks
SEO Tactics | | fslpso0 -
How many hyphens are allowed in page titles or image names?
When I was going through certification, I was told it should be limited to one or two. I was curious if there is a change.
On-Page Optimization | | SeobyKP0 -
Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?
Hi guys, I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out. Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Does having a "+" in a URL hurt SEO? Would much value be gained changing it to a hyphen?
There's a site that contains "+" signs in the URL in order to call different information for the content on the page. Would it be better to change those to hyphens (-), or not that much value will be gained, so leave them as is? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MitchellStoker0