Question about domains with 2 or 3 hyphens
-
I have a client who has 3 domains in the following format:
keywordkeywordkeywordkeyword.co.uk
keyword-keyword-keyword-london.co.uk
And needs advice on the best one to use.
The client is leaning towards the one with 3 hyphens because it has more keywords but I am a bit worried about using it at the risk of it looking too spammy because of the hyphens.
So my question is will 3 hyphens as in the above example cause anything negative in terms of SEO? We will not be doing any black-hat seo tactics but even so will 3 hyphens cause any problems or is it safer to go with just two hyphens?
And secondly the client asked if Google can understand different words or is it better to have hyphens so Google can understand that there are different words?
-
Totally agree with Moosa's suggestion, even for just one reason:
It looks spammy and is associated with spammers, this is one of those things that can make or break website conversion.
-
Google have the ability to read and separate words accordingly so hyphens are not really a need!
As far as choosing the domains is concern, if I would be at your place I would have turn down all the domains as I always keep certain things in mind when choosing a website URL
- Google either give no or very low weight to keywords within the domain, so if you have “pet store” in your domain name it alone will not really help you get better rankings for pet store! You still need to go for all other SEO practices to achieve that target.
- URL should be a name that people can easily remember so that they can mention easily if they want in their day to day conversations. It’s always easy to say “Moz” then “Search Engine and Digital Marketing agency Moz”
- Too many hyphens in the domain are normally of low quality or at least it’s an assumption because back in the time (to an extent still) these type of domains are normally used by spammers
My advice would be to use a domain name that is short, catchy and relevant to your niche (not necessary to have a keyword in it) and then invest on building a brand name so that you can get natural links which is not really possible with too many keywords I the domain name.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi
To answer your last question first, yes, Google can generally understand different words joined together, but hyphenated is better for human readability.
Regarding your domain name choice, it really depends what keywords you are using in the domain as to what will work the best and what may or may not appear spammy. The spammy feel, if there is one, will really be to do with how people read the domain - and also maybe how long-winded a long domain name can be to type in.
Re Google, I'm not sure you are going to get much advantage from an SEO perspective by using multiple keywords in your domain, especially in the move towards semantic search, but as I say, it really depends on what those keywords are.
I hope that helps,
Peter
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
-
2 Google my business listings for one company
Hello all I work for a small company. we do carpentings and old wooden furniture repairs. With the same company, we've started a tiny house building business, which is completly different of what we usally do and this is a national business wj The question is, can a create a different google my business listing for this activity ? It has different brand on logo but same phone number and same physical address. From what i ve found in google help pages , i would say yes, but i d take opinions about this , tks for your precious answers from google : Departments within other business, universities, or institutions
Local Listings | | uservices
Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government institutions may have their own listings on Google.
Learn more
Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page. The exact name of each department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments. Typically such departments have a separate customer entrance and should each have distinct categories. Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business.
• Acceptable (as distinct listings):
o "Walmart Vision Center"
o "Sears Auto Center"
o "Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology"
• Not acceptable (as distinct listings):
o The Apple products section of Best Buy
o The hot food bar inside Whole Foods Market
For each department, the category that is the most representative of that department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments.
• The main business "Wells Fargo" has the category "Bank" whereas the department "Wells Fargo Advisors" has the category "Financial Consultant"
• The main business "South Bay Toyota" has the category "Toyota Dealer" whereas the "South Bay Toyota Service & Parts" has the category "Auto Repair Shop" (plus the category "Auto Parts Store")
• The main business "GetGo" has the category "Convenience Store" (plus the category "Sandwich Shop") whereas the department "GetGo Fuel" has the category "Gas Station", and the department "WetGo" has the category "Car Wash"1 -
What are the repercussions of switching a domain?
We have recently switched the calgaryhomepros.com domain, which used to be a point2 site, to our current site, which is hosted by a Real Estate webpage hosting company called Redman. When we replaced the domain for the Redman site, the old point2 site stopped existing, and because the link structure didn’t line up perfectly to the new host, there were a bunch of 404 error pages which rank high-ish in the SERP. My question is, outside of manually redirecting the high ranking 404 pages to our current site, what can I do to improve my SEO in this situation? Is there anything else I should be doing, and is this hurting my SEO drastically?
Local Listings | | liamvansteps0 -
A question for a real citation building PRO (I am totally lost on this one) Thank you for ANY help!
Quick Q for your (local) SEO gurus. I have a client who has bought a number of local companies. (advertising, printing, graphic design, vehicle wraps) to compliment his screen printing, embroidery, etc business. ALL of these companies run out of the SAME address. What makes it even harder is he wants to continue operating them as separate companies. Fortunately, he is OK with using different phone numbers for each business but on the website (we are building for him) ALL the companies are represented like it is all one big happy company. How the H@#$ do I build citations for this business! 🙂 ??? THANK YOU FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS!! If I use the one 'parent' company building citations is a challenge bcs they do so MANY things in one location. If I try and build citations for 5 companies w the same address - that can't be a good idea either. If the plan is to eventually fold all these companies into the one parent company *(waiting to hear back on that) I would think the BEST advice would be to use the ONE phone number and address and just shoot for a general 'marketing' category. Thanks for any thoughts!! Matthew Saw Web Marketing Quick Q for your (local) SEO gurus smarter than myself. I have a client who has bought a number of local companies. (advertising, printing, graphic design, vehicle wraps) to compliment his screen printing, embroidery, etc business. ALL of these companies run out of the SAME address. What makes it even harder is he wants to continue operating them as separate companies. Fortunately, he is OK with using different phone numbers for each business but on the website (we are building for him) ALL the companies are represented like it is all one big happy company. How the H@#$ do I build citations for this business! 🙂 ??? THANK YOU FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS!! If I use the one 'parent' company building citations is a challenge bcs they do so MANY things in one location. If I try and build citations for 5 companies w the same address - that can't be a good idea either.
Local Listings | | Mrupp440 -
Local citations - domain or business name
I have a bit of a tricky situation with a client where there is some history with old domains. But this is the current situation which I need to stick to: Business name (all made up) is Acme Print 2 live websites - acme-niche(dot)com and productsandservices(dot)com Third website acmeprint(dot)com is live and owned by an old partner, different NAP. acme-niche(dot)com and productsandservices(dot)com share the same NAP. Not much traffic and a bit of a poor domain profile for acme-niche(dot)com, so suggest just using productsandservices(dot)com. Also acme-niche(dot)com would be a bit misleading for use for the whole business in any case. However, all content for productsandservices(dot)com refers to Acme Print. Because of all the confusion should we keep the productsandservices(dot)com referring to Acme Print throughout, or update with new productsandservices(dot)com logo, mention that it is a trading name of Acme Print and refer to the trading domain name throughout the content. I want to know the best option for listings and citations - the trading name which is a domain name or Acme Print? I've not worked with a local site where domain name and business name and a separate business with domain are mixed up.
Local Listings | | MickEdwards0 -
Should I change my listing title or even my domain
I have a domain for a lawn maintenance company. The domain is something like mycompanyyardcare.com Even though this company do yard care most of the business that is trying to attract is Lawn maintenance. The keywords that most people type when they are looking for this service is "lawn care". Should i change my domain to mycompanylawncare.com instead of mycompanyyardcare.com? Other thing, in the listings or links that I'm creating in directories, the company name is Mycompany yard care & snow removal. Should I change to Mycompany lawn care & snow removal?
Local Listings | | Brumas0 -
Yext Power Listings and SEO Question...
Hi, I was wondering if anyone that has used Yext's Power Listings has experienced any negative (or positive) organic SEO results. As you know if you've used Yext, it creates a ton of links from directories. I think they're mainly no-follow links, but wanted to check if anyone has had experience (either good, bad, or neutral) regarding impact on organic results. Thanks.
Local Listings | | mrodriguez14400 -
Google Places Question
Hello All, I have an Ecommerce website with a number of different depots which customers can pick products up from. I have created a Google Places listing for each of my depots. My website has a unique page for each of my Locations. Should I have a link from the individual website location pages to the corresponding Google Places Page ?.. Currently I only have a link from the Google Places page back to the website Location Page ? Should the images I have in my google Places listings contain the relevant Location name in the image file names ? Is there any useful pointers for SEO tuning for google places or articles anyone could recommend ?.. thanks Sarah
Local Listings | | SarahCollins0 -
What to do if the domain name is very different from real business name for local listings
Hey guys, any advice is very welcome , I m´ ranking locally a website in the bay area for cabinets www.cabinetsbayarea.com we picked this domain name more for SEO purposes because it has the two most important keywords that we want to rank. My issue is that the real busniess name is HEMA DESIGN CENTER, so i dont know if we should change the name in the chamber of commerce to CABiNETS BAY AREA or list the business as HEMA DESIGN CENTER, with this website www.cabinetsbayarea.comr. We only mention the real name in the About Us. CABINETS BAY AREA it is more as a deparment of the real business name HEMA DESIGN CENTER What should i do? Thanks a lot, David
Local Listings | | conexion330