More Info On The Hyphen Debate

In my last post I provided some information about the Hyphen in your domain name debate. A very "hot" topic right now and an isuue we should all be aware of and deal with ( especially people that may have domains registered that contain Hyphens ) .

It is true that having hyphens in your doamian name does make it easier on the viewer's eyes because the title stands out more than without the hyphen - for example:


http: //www.playbettergolfnow.com

http://www.play-better-golf-now.com

Having the hyphen does make the domain name more readable. The question remains - how do search engines react to the hyphens in your domain name ?

It seems from all accounts so far, not in a good way and that can mean lower traffic to your web site - not a good thing.

Dr. Andy Williams sheds some more light on the subject in his most recent EZSEO Newsletter. ( a side note - Dr. Andy used to have ahyphen in his domain .. he doesn't any longer .. I think that says something about his view point . You be the judge.

Below is what Dr.Andy has to say about the subject .

As always .. Enjoy !


The Hyphen Debate

by Andy Williams

A raging debate is whether or not hyphens in domain names can hurt
your rankings. You all know my opinion here, but I have received a
number of emails from people saying that Google Engineer Matt Cutts
has said in various places recently that Google does not penalise a
site for hyphens.

Well, I'll come to that in a minute. For now, I think Michael
Campbell summarised it very nicely in his newsletter earlier this
week when he talked about the hyphen issue. He said that there was
no real reason for debate since you can all go check for
yourselves. I talked with Michael about this and the odd exception
to the rule, and he told me:

"Yep, there's always exceptions to every rule. That's why I kept
testing - 18 tries - until I finally found a hyphenated domain in
the top five. But for most of the hotly contested affiliate
categories... they're nowhere to be found. "

OK, Michael and I agree on this.

So, why did Matt Cutts say that hyphenated domains were not
penalised? Well, he didn't, at least not that I can find. What he
did say was (and this quote is taken from Alan Gardyne's excellent
newsletter as I could not find the original location of the quote,
though I do remember it being accurate):

"We don't use hyphens as a spam signal."

Well that clears it up doesn't it? NOT!

What Matt Cutts has done is avoid the question (and who can blame
him? Google aren't about to tell you what makes a page rank
highly, are they?). The question that is being asked is "Do
hyphenated domains get penalised?". This answer does not answer
that, it just says that hyphens don't automatically mark the site
as spam.

There are a number of reasons why a page ranking will fall, and
most don't have anything to do with whether they are spam or not.

From my own observations, and following on from what I told you in
a previous newsletter, hyphenated domains do not get you booted out
of Google (which is what you can expect if your site is spam).
From what I can see, Page Rank is maintained, so there is obviously
no spam penalty in action here. What I do see though is what
Michael Campbell described. Fewer and fewer domains with hyphens
ranking in the top 10 at Google.

You make you own minds up about this, I know I have.


Andy Williams ez SEO
EzSEO Newsletter
http://ezseonews.com/blog/index.php