SEO Test: Domain Hyphenation [Update]

[Dan-Petrovic]

In May I announced test results for domain hyphenation but after a 3 month followup the results have changed and the hyphenated domain now wins on what seems to be the first link instance advantage. I was unable to discover any other factors which may have influenced this test but if anyone has any ideas I would like to hear about it.

Here are the details of the SEO test and revealed URLs.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Yes that's my thoughts too. What's interesting is that they made a switch after a while.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Very nice find - thanks!

[mosaicpro]

Maybe one of the factors why the hyphenated one ranks better is that it was indexed 1st and then the non-hyphenated one was indexed after.

Having 1 line of text that only the domain name is different could be considered duplicate content by Google thus the rankings.

[ReneReinholdt]

to make a test I guess you would have to make two pages, with different gibberish on them and then place the keyphrase 2 times on the same char positions (on in the beginning of the document and one at the end.) on each page, but otherwise exactly the same (title exc..). that way we can rule duplicate content out.

I mean something like this:

page 1:

<title>key-phrase bla bla</title>
asd fgh key-phrace jhjd hjd lkd skl ælkjh ghsd sdf fsd key-phrase asd

page 2:

<title>key-phrase poi ert</title>
dsa qwe key-phrace kjhg tyu poi ert mnbvc asdf qwe tyu key-phrase qwe

hope I made sence

[IKT]

Hmm anyone notices ? that when i search 'Dejan Seo love' , the one without hyphenation scored better... while 'Dejan seo love_s_' gives a different result ...

And when we searched 'dejan seo testing' although the hyphenation scored better but the result for the one without hyphenation has all words BOLDED out like this 'Did you know that dejanseolovestesting.com.'

Hmm google indeed works in mysterious way xD

PS : It is too bad that your title is "Dejan Love Testing" i wonder if you have a "Dejan Loves Testing" that the result would be different?

[Dan-Petrovic]

Thank you. That explains it!

[RyanKent]

When you view the SERPs, and then click on the cache link there is a second line of text which says "These search terms are highlighted: dejan seo loves testing". In the cache results with the hyphens, all the key words are highlighted on the page. That does not happen on the result without the hyphens.

I believe that is the difference James is referring to.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQIDAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3AOp9Kg3t6YpEJ%3Adejan-seo-loves-testing.com%2F%2Bdejan%2Bseo%2Bloves%2Btesting%26cd%3D1%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dau%26source%3Dwww.google.com.au&rct=j&q=dejan%20seo%20loves%20testing&ei=W5k3ToXoNcXjiALa5-juDg&usg=AFQjCNGc1gcQMkVTux13qWnLi5f9Qbc58g&cad=rja

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDYQIDAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3ArWtdK5LC3vgJ%3Adejanseolovestesting.com%2F%2Bdejan%2Bseo%2Bloves%2Btesting%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dau%26source%3Dwww.google.com.au&rct=j&q=dejan%20seo%20loves%20testing&ei=W5k3ToXoNcXjiALa5-juDg&usg=AFQjCNFWy4-z8B3Md1eaKRCrfIl2__Jhqw&cad=rja

[Dan-Petrovic]

Hi James,

No link building was done for these two domains. If they have links they would be random and automated from various places such as whois services scrapers etc.

Not sure I understand this part:

"a funny thing is if you view the cache version of the website Google notes that the hyphen domain as splitting up the text with spaces."

Are you talking about these two:

• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fdejan-seo-loves-testing.com%2F
• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fdejanseolovestesting.com%2F

[JamesNorquay]

I was looking at the URL mentions within SERP results,

The non hyphen seems to have 126 mentions compared with the hyphen domain at 76, don't know about the quality of these links what link building tactics were employed.

Both seem to only pick up one link via OSE been on your main website.

I would also question the hosting/who is data and any other common areas for the website, a funny thing is if you view the cache version of the website Google notes that the hyphen domain as splitting up the text with spaces.

When comparing IP data from the host, seems as though they are on a similar server yet not the same correct?

IP Address     174.121.38.186
IP Address     174.121.38.162

But overall very interesting test, and thank you for sharing.

[RyanKent]

I enjoyed reviewing the test results and this follow up. My two curiosities are:

• what would be the result with different C blocks

• are the two results dead even in SERP to where any factor can tip one result above the other. It could be that neither is winning but are equal, and Google has to place one ahead of the other based on a random factor such as which was crawled first.