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!
-
Just to be clear, here we are talking about URLs and not the domain name because when it comes to domain name my personal advice is not to go fir hyphens as this is not a common practice plus its usually a practice of spammers to use shady domain names.
As far as URLs are concern it’s a wonderful idea as Lina said they are better than underscores.
Hope this helps!
-
Yes, no hyphens in the domain name. Thanks for clarifying, Donna.
-
Agree with what LindaLV has said, but want to be sure you're not talking about a domain name. Hyphens used when referencing a file or folder name is good. Hyphens in a domain name is less than ideal.
So, for example,
http://www.domainname.com/folder-name/file-name.html is good,
http://www.domain-name.com/foldername/filename.html is not so good.
Domain names should be short, memorable, preferably branded, and use no special characters.
-
Hyphens are definitely a good idea. They make the URL easier to read and more user-friendly. (See more about it from Webmaster Tools Help here.)
"Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs."
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
-
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
On-Page Optimization | | JCN-SBWD
"royalty free music" | 11.5-30.3K
"royalty-free music" | 501-850 If 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?0 -
Best Tool for Retrieving Multiple URL Word Counts in Bulk?
I am doing some content analysis with over 200 URLs to go through! Does anybody know of, or can recommend any bulk on-page word count checkers which would help with the heavy lifting? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | NickG-1230 -
Using keywords in my URL: Doing a redirect to /keyword
My website in "On Page Grade" received an A.Anyway, I only have 1 thing to optimize:_"Use Keywords in your URL__Using your targeted keywords in the URL string adds relevancy to your page for search engine rankings, assists potential visitors identify the topic of your page from the URL, and provides SEO value when used as the anchor text of referring links."_My website is ranking in top10 for a super high competitive keyword and all my others competitors have the keyword on their domain, but not for my URL.Since I can't change my domain for fixing this suggestion, I would like to know what do you think about doing a 301 redirect from / to mydomainname.com/keyword/So the index of my website would be the /keyword.I don't know if this can make a damage to my SERP for the big change ir it would be a great choice.
On-Page Optimization | | estebanseo0 -
URL Path. What is better for SEO
Hello Moz people, Is it better for SEO to have a URL path like this: flowersite.com/anniversary_flowers/dozen_roses OR flowersite.com/dozen_roses Is it better to have the full trail of pages in the URL?
On-Page Optimization | | CKerr0 -
URL for a new website
Hi, I am creating a new website for a client. Is it best to include the keywords from the most common search in the domain name, they would like: forenamesurname.com but should I be recommending: weddingmakeupbyforename.com Does it make much difference to search rankings if the keyword is in the domain name? Thanks v much
On-Page Optimization | | danieldunn100 -
Should stop words be used in titles? I'm aiming for natural title structure.
I have fully optimized on-page SEO for the following keyword (not really the one I use, but it can serve as an example): -personal driver in los angeles Even though "in" is a stop word, I prefer to have a natural (non-robotic) structure for the title - I do this by including "in". I believe that "personal driver los angeles" is too spammy and too robotic. Is this a good or a bad thing?
On-Page Optimization | | zorsto0 -
What are the best practices for google indexing ajax response urls?
We just did a build to our site and our server erros went up to over 9,500. After looking into it, it seems like google is crawling the ajax urls and coming back with the errors. Here is one example http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/productDetail.do?navType=type&vehicleId=1423&webTypeId=68&navTitle=Drive&webCatId=9&prodFamilyId=29660 If you know of any good articles on this please send them my way.
On-Page Optimization | | DoRM0 -
Using a more relevant brand title for blog
I'm a newbee here so I appologize in advance for asking a question that might already be aswered ( i looked I promise). The question is this, I've been fiddling with the title tags and came upon the need to make a decision about separating our blog brand to be more specific to it's content. We're a moving company, our primary website talks about services and is branded with our name (%page_name% | 2 Brothers Moving & Delivery Portland Oregon), our blog is a work in progress "Moving Guide" (%post_title% | Portland Moving Guide). Should I stick with the standard brand name on the blog or call it something keyword specific like above? As a side question what do you all think about my titles in the first place? In case you'd like to take a look: www.2brothersmoving.net www.2brothersmoving.net/blog
On-Page Optimization | | r1200gsa0