Domain.com/keyword1.keyword2.html vs doamin.com/keyword1-keyword2.html

[jlane9]

I was doing some research and saw this url structure in a website that was not ranking well and can't help but wonder was the url structure part of the problem as well it looks like this with a period between keywords.

domain.com/keyword1.keyword2.html and was wondering if that is acceptable for search engines as opposed to the normal dashes like this expample ... domain.com/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.html

I have never noticed a period to separate words in a url before. Anyone have any experience with this ? Is this going to hurt possible rankings ?

Thank you in advance,

Joe

[alecfwilson]

Dots aren't used in URL structure except to signal a change, either from subdomain to root, root to tld, and in the URL string to indicate file format. Use dashes to separate words.

[KeriMorgret]

A period before the domain is a subdomain, like blog.domain.com.

A period after the domain usually indicates an extension, such as domain.com/index.html.

[Antony_Towle]

I remember seeing this Matt Cutts video back in the day, figured it would be useful,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQcSFsQyct8 , However this is underscores and your situation is a little different

Usually i would say don't think too much into it, But dots are a little different and i agree with Sean that you shouldn't use dots and you should probably change this where possible,

James

[Sean_Gutermuth]

I would definitely use dashes instead of dots. Dots usually imply it's a subdomain.