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The serps that I have been looking at have a distinct lack of hyphenated domain names and I am wondering if this is now considered over-optimization by Google? I guess it is often the mark of a 'spammer' or an affiliate!
I have also noticed that keywords in non-hyphenated domain names are highlighted so Google is evidently recognizing them now.
I chose the domain name pre-Florida, thinking that it would help. Have tried to vary the link text a bit.
I could change the domain name at this point (although it would be a bit of work) and I'm wondering if it would be worth it.
Any ideas about this?
I have seen a few of my competitors drop out and yes, they are hypernated (at least 3).
But I have some that is not dropped out.
The point is, your site become 'sneaky' when you have 3 or more hypens and Google will 'suspect'. They will not penalise directly but will have a look at other factors, such as your keyword density and most important how others link to you.
If say you have affordable-hawaii-hotels . org and you have 100+ links. 95% of them have anchor text Affordable Hawaii Hotels, I am sure it will trigger the filter.
As a user, I would not click even if it was in the first place. No offense.
Namniboose, just out of curiousity, how are you doing with Yahoo for that site?
I have started varying the link text, even though the business/website title is the obvious link text to use.
Marcia: the site is doing better on Yahoo than Google - it does get a few visitors from Yahoo and virtually nothing from Google. The file endings of other pages that link to the home page are varied - is that enough?
Aline
e.g. www.great-widget-seller.com/red-widgets-explained-here.asp
This URL would contain 5 hyphens.
[This senario resembles one of our sites.]
Patrick: I actually have a short memorable name pointed at the site that I use for people. This is just for the search engines.
This has worked well for me in the past but I'm sure a lot of people will tell me it's a bad idea!
I have one domain which plays hommage to a song about a city and I thought the name choice was cute. The site ranks well despite having 5 hyphens in the domain name.
If Google really has a problem then rather then penalizing the name choices for domains it should just remove any benfits keywords in the names would have. Personally I believe this is slightly counter inuitive because obvious the keywords in the name probably signify the content of the would be related to those words.
This may be a factor. Think here of Google not penalizing for a long hypenated domain name, but instead giving bonus algo points for keyword in domain name. Thus, if I have red-widgets.com, and lots of people link to me with "red widgets" in anchor text, then for the exact search "red widgets" my site looks the ideal match. However, if I have best-quality-lowest-cost-most-reliable-red-widgets.com, and most people link with just "red widgets", then my site no longer looks like an ideal match. Its quite obvious from seeing many site logs that people tend to very short search phrases. Thus, while many looking to buy a red widget will type in "red widgets" in the search box, nobody will ever search for "best quality lowest cost most reliable red widgets".
IOW, if playing the keyword in domain name game, keep it short and simple. Leave the marketing hype on the page, rather than stick it in the domain name.
My site is something like this:
www.businessname.com/travel-flights/budget-flights
etc
Extensive use of hyphens for directory structure but domain name.
but not domain name
www.businessname.com/travel-flights/budget-flights
I can only speak from my own experience. I routinely use folder names and filenames with one, two, and sometimes three hyphens (but NEVER in domain names). Although I can't prove I wouldn't do better without, it certainly doesn't seem to have done any harm. A wooly response, I know, but I can think of no good reason why Google would deliberately "penalise" hyphenated folder and filenames, though there must come a point where the length becomes unwieldy in computing terms.
Actually I believe there is very little that Google consciously penalises as such. There are just some things that work better than others. Also I think it's possible to take certain things too far and to inadvertently trigger off an inexplicable glitch, even making a site or pages drop out very suddenly, but one-two-or-three hyphenated filenames isn't likely to be one of them.
From an SE algo point of view, it would make some sense to rank lower domain names with a large number of hyphens because this tends to be correlated with spam. From a webmastering perspective, one wants an easy to remember and easy to type in domain name. Thus as a webmaster interested in user convenience, keyword1-keyword2.com makes sense. Very user friendly. However, keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5-keyword6.com is something a webmaster would ONLY do to game search engines. Who the heck wants to remember and type in keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5-keyword6.com to get to a site?
However, as a webmaster I select directory/folder names for *my* convenience. I don't expect the users of my sites to remember the URL of every bloody page on the site. I expect them to type in the domain name in the browser, and let them get to where they want via the site navigation. Thus for me it makes sense to name directories/folders in a way that makes them easy for me to find. Hence domain.com/countries/us/states/michigan/elected-officials/house-of-representatives/districts/ makes sense. As such, I'd think it downright odd if hyphens in directories/folders would be ranked lower in SEs.
From an SE algo point of view, it would make some sense to rank lower domain names with a large number of hyphens because this tends to be correlated with spam.
Using this logic, since some kids use drugs, then all kids use drugs and should be punished as such.
From a webmastering perspective, one wants an easy to remember and easy to type in domain name. Thus as a webmaster interested in user convenience, keyword1-keyword2.com makes sense. Very user friendly. Who the heck wants to remember and type in keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5-keyword6.com to get to a site
Since most people click on the link instead of actually typing out the domain name, this is virtually a non-issue. Even if one must type the domain name to initially get to the site, smart people bookmark the site so they don't have to keep typing in the name.
However, keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5-keyword6.com is something a webmaster would ONLY do to game search engines.
I guess I need to let my 13 year old niece know she is gaming the search engines, then, even though she has NO CLUE what SEO is.
How about this scenario. I'm at a bar talking with a friend of mine who is knowledgeable about widgets. I'm interested in buying a widget, and ask him if he would know the best site on the Internet to buy a widget? D'ya think he's more likely to remember the site with 2 keywords in the domain name, or 6 keywords in the domain name? For this reason alone non-spammy webmasters shy away from ridiculously long domain names. Search engines likely also realize this.
This is a variation on Brett's advice about success to think brand.com, rather than keyword domain names. And, if you look at the domain name of this site, even Brett apparently thinks in some cases limited keywords in a domain name are OK. ;)
Perhaps a combination of hyphenated domain names in conjunction with hyphenated page names is what may trigger a "closer look" by Googles filter?
Google penalizes duplicate content and /or doorway pages though. You might've answered your own question
"Patrick: I actually have a short memorable name pointed at the site that I use for people. This is just for the search engines."
Addressed to me, and not something I said!
Google penalizes duplicate content and /or doorway pages though. You might've answered your own question
There are no links to the other domain name and I have had no problems with this with other sites when I do the redirect at the registrar.
a lot of people will tell me it's a bad idea!
You have 2 domains pointing at the same site, and not 2 sites as such? That's what I understood from what you said. I imagine it IS a bad idea but I can't tell you exactly why (because I don't know). I know of a respected site that does exactly this, and both domains appear to be doing well, nicely alongside each other, high in Google SERPS.
Your original question was whether the hyphenated domain would be the reason for poor SERPS. I believe it's more likely because you're in a very competitive area of the sort which is, by all accounts, full of "ruthless spammers who will stop at nothing to get what they want".
You have 2 domains pointing at the same site, and not 2 sites as such? That's what I understood from what you said. I imagine it IS a bad idea but I can't tell you exactly why (because I don't know). I know of a respected site that does exactly this, and both domains appear to be doing well, nicely alongside each other, high in Google SERPS.
Yes, I have 2 domains pointed at one site. I did have problems with my first website when the redirect was set up at the server - Google picked up the site with no PR and dropped the other one (which had a page 1 position) and I lost all visitors from Google for a month! (used adwords instead which wasn't as good). When I set up the redirect at the registrar instead (as suggested by a WW member) I didn't have that problem.
A lot of people do redwidgets.com and red-widgets.com both pointed at the same website - for obvious reasons - so I don't think this is the problem.
Your original question was whether the hyphenated domain would be the reason for poor SERPS. I believe it's more likely because you're in a very competitive area of the sort which is, by all accounts, full of "ruthless spammers who will stop at nothing to get what they want".
Actually the keywords I am targetting aren't very competitive and aren't spammed-out. That is why I am surprised I haven't made any progress.
I think I need to vary the incoming link text more. Any other ideas would be very welcome!
www.wicked-widgets.com/red/fluffy/round-spotted.htm
or
www.wicked-widgets.com/red/fluffy/round_spotted.htm
underscore or dash?
