Thanks for the link Gary.

I watched the video on misspellings;

http://www.seomoz.org/dp/seomoz-pro-video-tips

I think this would be a good way to capture variants of the part number search

thanks Joel . Gary.

Gary, I always believed "-" was treat the same as " " or "" i.e. Monkey-Butler would be treated the same  as "Monkey Butler" or "MonkeyButler" or "Monkey" & "Butler". But after reading your response I am now not so sure. Your answer seems logical. Anyone know the answer?

I actually found a decent answer to my intial question in the Pro Video section about misspellings

Hello,

I have a question how about how google sees dashes, slashes, full stops etc. I am new to SEO so this might be dumb.

I sell refurbished printer parts. The majority of people search for the part number in google.

A typical part number might be "04.F5/S3A YA50" .  A customer might search for "04F5S3A YA50" or "04.F5/S3AYA50" or "04.F5/S3A YA50" or "04.F5/S3A-YA50". They aren't radically different but seem to effect the rankings.

At the moment I use the following stucture for the meta tiles, descriptions etc

04.T5/S3A YA50 (04T5S3AYA50) by OEM | mysite

Buy refurbished OEM 04.T5/S3A YA50 (04T5S3AYA50). Free next day delivery. 12 month warrnanty on all parts.

www.mysite/4F5S3AYA50

Part number (Part number no spaces) by OEM | Mysite

Generic text Part number (Part number no spaces) text

www.mysite/(Part number no spaces

My questions, should I try to include all the different ways a customer might search for a part number in my meta title, description, url etc.  Or should I try to include within the content of the page.

Many thanks