Hyphens and Spaces

Can we revisit this theory?

[anallawalla]

Eons ago, martinibuster said:

A search on google for "meals-on-wheels" will produce the exact same results as "meals on wheels"

More recently, someone said that hyphens in trademarks are not a good idea for this reason.

Today:

"meals on wheels" (phrase) = 168,000
meals on wheels = 292,000
"meals-on-wheels" (hyphenated word) = 171,000
meals-on-wheels = 122,000

Well, try your favourite hyphenated search terms or the above and tell me if am missing something?

- Ash

[SEO practioner]

Hi analla and welcome to webmaster world!

Well martini buster is right, I am afraid. Google uses a complex algorithm that does take into consideration hyphens in domain names AND keywords!

So Google treats dashes (hyphens) as spaces, since a space in a domain name is not allowed.

So, for SEO purposes, hyphens do have a lot of power in the serps, even IF a hyphanated domain name looks peculiar when compared to a regular domain name.

Hope that helps

[anallawalla]

(We joined on the same day) :)

No, I was saying that his quoted assertion does not work, as shown by my four variants. IOW, spaces and hyphens are treated differently in SERPs.

Wasn't a domain name question but that's relevant.

- Ash