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.
-
Hi KP
There really is no limit but URL's with many hyphens tend to look spammy.
Remember the old days of long partial match URLs? www.cheap-car-insurance-for-u.com? and suchlike? They just look really crappy. If you really must use one in the TLD then limit it to one.
For Pages & Posts, it's quite common to see more use of hyphens. I'm editor at a music blog and it's quite common to see for example:
sitename.com/the-rolling-stones-manchester-live-review It looks natural even though there is a stop word in the URL because 'The' is actually part of the Stones' name
You will get a warning in Moz because of the long URL but it will not stop it ranking well, at all!
For images, it depends on how descriptive you want it to be. If the image was of Mick Jagger in Manchester then the image URL could easily be sitename**/mick-jagger-manchester-old-trafford** and then the Title or Alt text tag would be 'Mick Jagger - Manchester - Old Trafford, so highly descriptive with a couple of hyphens and great for image SEO.
So it's up to you really - the more descriptive the better. Ignore warnings of long URLs unless they are stupidly long and focus on enhancing the ranking of the page rather than worry about minutiae.
Now:
If you are talking about Meta Titles then it's common to use a variety of separators such as a hyphen (-) or a bar (|). In that case, it's fairly simple as you need Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword - Sitename so they are often limited to just two.
I think the more you use them the less space there is for Keywords and it's important with a limited length (60-70 characters) to get those in as a priority. The hyphen takes up 3 characters so they are largely a waste of space.
I hope that helps
Regards Nigel
-
Hello there,
If you're talking about the name of image files such as jpg and png where hyphens are used as space (just like you did on page url), there's really no limit given by Google, so my advice would be not to over optimize those image files by stuffing your keywords in it (ie, keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4.jpg), just make it natural (puppy-food.jpg) instead.
As for Page Titles like Gaston suggested to use it as a separator (personally I prefer | or : ), and again there's no actual limit given by Google, but the key here is to make sure these are optimized for your visitor then only Google. Just make sure they're natural then you should be fine.
Hope this helps,
Joseph Yap
-
Hi there!
There is no such restriction on the amount of hyphens. Usually there are one or two, used as separators in titles. Never seen them in image titles.
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR.
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
-
Wordpress Post as Slideshow - One long page vs many short pages?
We are working on implementing a slideshow format for some of the posts on a website, and it appears that using this format breaks a long post into several shorter pages. That's what we want from a user experience standpoint, but are wondering if there are negative SEO implications from having the content broken up in this way, and whether search engines will view it as one longer page or several very short pages? Here is an example: http://www.forthebestrate.com/10-cheap-ideas-for-summer-fun/ Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | ILM_Marketing0 -
"City page" links in footer of home page: Spammy?
Is listing a bunch of links to city pages in the footer of a home page considered "spammy" to Google? (ie- Chicago Alarms, Illinois Alarms, Naperville Alarms, etc.) What are the negative affects this might have on ranking, if any?
On-Page Optimization | | MChi0 -
Too Many On-Page Links, Can You HELP???
This is the best architecture I found to help my visitors find there furnace filter size. Does it hurt my SEO? Index page has, 210 links and most other pages has, 190 links. Thank you, BigBlaze
On-Page Optimization | | BigBlaze2050 -
Keyword Placement in Page Title - will changing it make a big difference?
Hiya guys I've noticed since changing my Title of my forum from: Talk Nightlife | Nightlife and Clubbing forum for the UK to Talk Nightlife | Nightlife Forum and Clubbing Guide for the UK (current) ... That its jumped from 22nd to 10th in google for term "nightlife forum" Am wondering, because of the on site optimisation tool telling me I should put the keyword to the front to something like eg: Nightlife Forum | Talk Nightlife Clubbing Guide for the UK Will changing the Keyword and putting it to front of the Title make a big difference? Your thoughts please guys Cheers Luke
On-Page Optimization | | Lukescotty0 -
Dupelicate content home page and custom page question
I am working on a website that got hit by the penguin update. Didn't get hit terribly bad, but dropped from number one to number 9. As I'm going through the pages, the theme and content is a mess. To give an example, say the site is about custom colored marbles. The main page content covers custom colored marbles, custom promotional marbles, custom glass marbles, etc. Custom colored marbles is mentioned and covered on all pages, which I am going back and trying to make each page theme specific. There is also a custom page, so I am at a cross roads on how best to employ the focus of the custom page and the home page. I am thinking the home page should emphasize colored marbles, and the custom page should emphasize custom colored marbles. My fear is that making such a drastic change will bounce the site completely off front page and that it will take time for the custom page to come up in rankings. AS it stands now I am confused as to how it even ranks on first page as there's two pages with custom colored marbles emphasis. Id like to clean this up as much as possible so there are no big hits with future google updates, but I don't want the site to drop off either as that would be hard to explain to the owner. Yeah, we are cleaning up your site and making it google compliant and in so doing you no longer rank on first page. That won't put food on the table. Thanks for any advise on this.
On-Page Optimization | | anthonytjm0 -
My website is saying I have duplicate page content and page title. How do I fix it?
Hi, I created a website on webstarts.com. After I launched it then ran a scan through SEO it says I have duplicate page content and page title. The 2 pages it is reading are technically the same page. www.mobilemowermedicsinc.com and www.mobilemowermedicsinc.com/index . I am unsure how to get rid of on of these as it keeps saying this is an error in the SEO scan. Could someone please advise me of what to do from here. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | bcarp880 -
SEO Value of Within-Page Links vs. Separate Pages
Title says it all. Assuming that you're talking about similar content (let's say, widgets), which is better: using within-page links for variations or using separate pages? I.e., do we have a widget page and then do in-page links to describe green, blue, and red widgets, or separate pages for each type of widget? In-page pro: more content on a single page, thus more keywords, key phrases, and general appearance of real content. In-page con: Jakob Neilsen says they're confusing. Also, for SEO, you only get one page title, rather than a separate page title for each. My personal bias is for in-page, since I hate creating dozens of short pages for what could be on one page, but my suspicion is that separate pages are better for SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | maxkennerly0