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
"royalty free music" | 11.5-30.3K
"royalty-free music" | 501-850If 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?
-
you could always search in Google and compare the ranking of the page. If the same url's get there in the same order = no difference. If there is a difference you could consider using some variation on your site.
Most easy: use what you consider to be right en build great content. Google will find this very small difference out.
-
Not trying to play it an expert.
From my experience, writing "royalty-free music" in your website will rank you for both "royalty-free music" and "royalty free music".
The opposite is not always true but i'm saying that having in mind forms such as "webhosting" and "web hosting". For instance, writing "webhosting" won't necessarily rank me as high as "web hosting" would.
Weird thing is that one particular SEO tool suggested us the use of the "webhosting" form too apart from "web hosting" (which is quite odd for English speakers). Of course, when we tested it out, it didn't work well in the rankings .
Don't know if your case with a dash will work though.
So in such cases i always tend to use the most searched form.
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
-
Alternate Spelling of Brand
Our brand is called The Queen's Lace. Based on Search Console, more people search for it by "Queens Lace" than "The Queen's Lace". Any suggestions on how I can improve SEO on "Queens Lace"? Search Console (last 28 days) "the queen's lace": 206 impressions, 60.7% CTR, 1.1 avg position "queens lace": 518 impressions, 46.3% CTR, 2.2 avg position Note: our domain is thequeenslace.com and I use a redirect from queenslace.com. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | pmk0
Patrick0 -
Small startup Marketing leader - What are 3 actionable reports I can review daily
Hi all - I've joined a small startup as their first marketing hire and I am strategizing, planning, and executing all work. I need to get to 3-4 reports I focus on per channel so I can still be relatively effective across multiple channels. What are 3-4 reports I should be laser-focused on in Moz that will help me ID opportunities/threats and be able to identify best actions from.
Digital Marketing | | AndrewAeqium0 -
Clever Way To Increase Organic Search Traffic To News/Magazine Websites
Hi fellow Mozzers... I've been asked to increase organic search (SEO) traffic to a news/magazine style website. All the website consists of is regular news articles within a specific niche. It is also already listed on Google News. I know we can improve any on-page tactics, such as optimising the article webpages, internal linking, improving the navigation and adding breadcrumbs etc. But what about off-page? They want us to work on backlinks to the site, which we can do for the homepage to improve the domain authority. But there's no point on increasing backlinks to the individual news articles, as they have a very short life span, and are not evergreen. Perhaps it's a good idea to increase backlinks to the category pages? But there are no real keyword opportunites on these pages. Can anyone recommend a clever SEO strategy to increase SEO traffic to a news style website? The site can be found at https://tinyurl.com/2p9arrwz Best wishes. Many thanks for any replies in advance 🙂 Lee.
SEO Tactics | | Webpresence0 -
Solved Would my site's DA be transferred if I redirect to another?
Re: How to create link from google redirect? I am thinking of changing my domain name from https://experts.ng to https://expertsclan.com and wondering if my DA could be transferred to the new site
Moz Pro | | dodo1234 -
Colons and commas in title tags instead of hyphens and pipes ?
Hi In light of Google changing display of title tag from character limit to pixel limit does it make sense to swap some uses of pipes and hyphens with colons and commas ? For example: Category: Keyword, Keyword, Keyword | Brand Instead of: Category - Keyword - Keyword - Keyword | Brand I seem to remember hearing bad things about colons in title tags but think that was just in regard to when used multiple times. Surely ok to use once if in logical format ? Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Hyphenated keyword rich domains - is a hyphenated .co.uk better than a non-hyphenatedlesser TLD such as .org?
Hey there, Would anyone be kind enough to share their experience of using keyword rich hyphenated domains. Are they as effective at tanking as non hyphenated domains? i.e would it be better to get a lesser non-hyphenated TLD such as .org for example rather than a hyphenated co.uk?
On-Page Optimization | | Wallander0 -
Does having a "+" in a URL hurt SEO? Would much value be gained changing it to a hyphen?
There's a site that contains "+" signs in the URL in order to call different information for the content on the page. Would it be better to change those to hyphens (-), or not that much value will be gained, so leave them as is? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MitchellStoker0 -
Better for SEO to use a hyphen in the name of a website to break up text?
To maximize SEO, would it be better to use a hyphen between two words in the name of a website? For instance, www.londonparis.com or www.london-paris.com. Would it be OK to use www.LondonParis.com Many thanks in advance, Ricardo
On-Page Optimization | | RicardoMello0