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
-
Optimizing shop content for desktop and mobile users
When arranging content on a shop category page I place a descriptive optimized opening paragraph of text above products. On desktop this shows both the opening text and the products above the fold (visible here https://www.scamblermusic.com/royalty-free-music-downloads/ - also shown on the screen grab below). The text may well be ignored by most visitors (who will likely be drawn straight to product images) but it still serves a purpose. dekstop.png When it comes to smaller mobile screens I have started to disable the opening paragraph of text (above the products) and instead place a copy of it below the products, (screen grab below). This keeps the optimized text on the page, but it means that mobile users instantly see products rather than having to scroll past text that they may see as inconvenient. mobile.png I'm conscious of the fact that Google indexes mobile content first, and it also doesn't like duplicate content. I therefore have three questions relating to this: Will moving the optimized text content below all the products to the bottom of the page devalue it (I understand important content should be as near to the top of page as possible)? Although the optimized paragraph of text only displays once on desktop (at the top of the page) and once on mobile (at the bottom of the page) it is actually visible twice in the source code - does this count as duplication, and could it therefore hurt the performance of the page in SERPs? If this practice does cause issues, is there an ideal way to optimize content on pages (especially shop category pages) that doesn't require mobile users to scroll through text before seeing products? Lastly, on topic optimized landing pages that feature product promotions such as this one - https://www.scamblermusic.com/royalty-free-music-downloads/music-licensing-scotland/ - I wonder if it is best to lead with an optimized text introduction above product images, or better to place the products right at the top of the page for immediate impact, then follow this with the content/article/blog post? Many thanks for any advice offered.
On-Page Optimization | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Inserting Keywords in Web Pages
Hello! Question: When I add chosen keywords to my site (in urls, title tags, meta description, page content, headers, etc), do I need to put the words on my webpage exactly as they appear in my keyword research? So if I searched "therapist bay area" and I want to include these keywords, for example, must I use those words in that order in a sentence or header on my homepage? Or is it enough to include each word somewhere on the page?
On-Page Optimization | | LPantell0 -
Unsolved Are my local pages watering down my website?
We operate in multiple cities, and for a number of years, have (mostly successfully) targeted each city with its own landing page. But lately Im seeing these pages drop in rankings, If I ignored SEO tactics, and designed the site based on what I think would be most useful/helpful to people viewing the website, I would not have any location landing pages. I would have one strong page (eg, probably the home page), that says "and we operate in the following locations..." and then list them off. The thing is, I dont really think these location specific landing pages have ever offered any real value to someone searching, other than just making it clear that we operate in their area (which doesn't need a landing page to make that clear). They're basically variations of each other, key word adjusted for the location - done for the purpose of ranking locally. I mean, that sounds like spam. But all the research says that I need landing pages for each location. My question: What would happen if I built one new page, and listed all the locations clearly on that page, and then 301 redirect the existing location landing pages to the new, single page. Would I fall of the cliff?
SEO Tactics | | blitzna1010 -
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 -
Mixing hyphens and underscores in a url
Hello. I am working on a site that was built with underscores in the urls, but only in the page names, not in the subdirectories. All the subdirectories have one-word names. So a typical url is "example.com/sub1/sub2/page_name." We would like to change the name of one of the subdirectories to a name that would be very useful for SEO, but this new name is a hyphenated word, let's call it "new-sub." If we changed "sub2" to "new-sub" then our url would have a mix of underscores and hyphens: example.com/sub1/new-sub/page_name. But if I used "new_sub" instead, google would read the words as connected with an underscore, instead of reading the subdirectory as a hyphenated word, which would be less useful for SEO. It seems like it might be a problem to have a hyphen in a subdirectory and underscores in the page names. But I want the SEO value of the hyphenated word. Any recommendations? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
Hyphenated keyword rich domains - is a hyphenated .co.uk better than a non-hyphenatedlesser TLD such as .org?
Hey there, Would anyone be kind enough to share their experience of using keyword rich hyphenated domains. Are they as effective at tanking as non hyphenated domains? i.e would it be better to get a lesser non-hyphenated TLD such as .org for example rather than a hyphenated co.uk?
On-Page Optimization | | Wallander0 -
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 -
Better for SEO to use a hyphen in the name of a website to break up text?
To maximize SEO, would it be better to use a hyphen between two words in the name of a website? For instance, www.londonparis.com or www.london-paris.com. Would it be OK to use www.LondonParis.com Many thanks in advance, Ricardo
On-Page Optimization | | RicardoMello0