Search results different with hyphens

[newwebster]

Does anybody know why keyword phrases with hyphens create completely different search results in the SERPS? How does Google look at a hyphen verses a space between keyword terms? I have 2 web sites that rank high with the use of the hyphen and do not appear at all with out them. Is there something in my source code that I can change in order to get away from this? Obviously, most people do not use the hyphen and I would get better results being listed under the keyword phrases that use just spaces.

[ciml]

I can't say that I've noticed anything that looks like searches with hyphens match pages any differently, at least considering on-page factors. Yet the results do differ.

It has been suggested that Google might one day treat hyphens as non-whitespace characters in link text; if they did this then I suppose searches with hyphens might make a difference.

Alternatively, the differences that we see when we search may just be due to temporal and other uncertainties, seen only because the two searches are calculated separately even if with the same rules. Just a thought...

[newwebster]

After looking at it a little more, I discvered that the hyphens tell Google to search the keywords in that exact sequence. This is more obvious in 3 keywords or more. So,
keyword1-keyword2-keyword3 must appear together in that sequence in any part of the SERP

a regular search for keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 can produce any result with those keywords in any sequence such as keyword2 keyword3 keyword1 or keyword3 keyword1 keyword2 in any part of the SERP

this has been my observation.

Thanks

[albert]

It's also nice to change order:

kw1-kw2 vs. kw2-kw1

[bhartzer]

I've noticed a major change in the past two months in how Google treats keywords with hyphens. For some keywords, it's a major problem, though, and is contributing to bad search results.

Google used to show 'key-word' search results when you did a search for 'key-word'. However, when you do a search for 'key-word' it shows results for 'keyword', not 'key-word' (which you searched for).

For some terms, key-word means something entirely different than keyword. In fact, it's sometimes a completely different industry.