To hyphenate or not to hyphenate?
-
Quick question: does Google differentiate between terms that correctly include a hyphen (such as "royalty-free") and those that are incorrect ("royalty free")?
I ask because the correct term "royalty-free"(with a hyphen) receives far less monthly traffic for the same term without the hyphen (according to Moz):
Term | Estimated traffic
"royalty free music" | 11.5-30.3K
"royalty-free music" | 501-850If Moz views the terms separately then I'd guess that Google does too, in which case the best thing to do for SEO (and increased site traffic) would be to wrongly use "royalty free" without the hyphen. Is that correct?
-
you could always search in Google and compare the ranking of the page. If the same url's get there in the same order = no difference. If there is a difference you could consider using some variation on your site.
Most easy: use what you consider to be right en build great content. Google will find this very small difference out.
-
Not trying to play it an expert.
From my experience, writing "royalty-free music" in your website will rank you for both "royalty-free music" and "royalty free music".
The opposite is not always true but i'm saying that having in mind forms such as "webhosting" and "web hosting". For instance, writing "webhosting" won't necessarily rank me as high as "web hosting" would.
Weird thing is that one particular SEO tool suggested us the use of the "webhosting" form too apart from "web hosting" (which is quite odd for English speakers). Of course, when we tested it out, it didn't work well in the rankings .
Don't know if your case with a dash will work though.
So in such cases i always tend to use the most searched form.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Remove the link from Google
Hi,
SEO Tactics | | CerenSEO
I am new here and I have an issue to solve. I do not anything about SEO.
My ex harasses me using SEO and causing defamation by crawling unwanted website. Google does not remove the website as it is public record. 1: how can I remove it? I am not even sure if he uses backlink because website link is pdf and he might do some other technics
2:Although I am sure he uses SEO, I can not prove it and nobody believes me. How can I proof it?0 -
Premium domain name redirects
Hi, I run a tree surgery business - woodfeldertreecare.co.uk We're based in Manchester, UK. A few days ago I was called by Premium Domain Names who convinced me that buying treesurgeonsmanchester.com and treesurgerymanchester.com and redirecting them to our main site would be amazing for organic traffic. My designer and an SEO friend both reckon this was a waste of money and reckon I've been scammed. Any thoughts? Please help.
SEO Tactics | | LeoTrees0 -
Should I "no-index" two exact pages on Google results?
Hello everyone, I recently started a new wordpress website and created a static homepage. I noticed that on Google search results, there are two different URLs landing on same content page. I've attached an image to explain what I saw. Should I "no-index" the page url? Google url.JPG In this picture, the first result is the homepage and I try to rank for that page. The last result is landing on same content with different URL. So, should I no-index last result as shown in image?
Technical SEO | | amanda59640 -
Clever Way To Increase Organic Search Traffic To News/Magazine Websites
Hi fellow Mozzers... I've been asked to increase organic search (SEO) traffic to a news/magazine style website. All the website consists of is regular news articles within a specific niche. It is also already listed on Google News. I know we can improve any on-page tactics, such as optimising the article webpages, internal linking, improving the navigation and adding breadcrumbs etc. But what about off-page? They want us to work on backlinks to the site, which we can do for the homepage to improve the domain authority. But there's no point on increasing backlinks to the individual news articles, as they have a very short life span, and are not evergreen. Perhaps it's a good idea to increase backlinks to the category pages? But there are no real keyword opportunites on these pages. Can anyone recommend a clever SEO strategy to increase SEO traffic to a news style website? The site can be found at https://tinyurl.com/2p9arrwz Best wishes. Many thanks for any replies in advance 🙂 Lee.
SEO Tactics | | Webpresence0 -
Solved how to do seo audit
hello . i am a user that runs parsp website . i really need to know how to run a site audit to keep my job clean and my site works well ! i need help and i am a newbie in this job . thanks moz !
Moz Tools | | valigholami13862 -
Optimizing shop content for desktop and mobile users
When arranging content on a shop category page I place a descriptive optimized opening paragraph of text above products. On desktop this shows both the opening text and the products above the fold (visible here https://www.scamblermusic.com/royalty-free-music-downloads/ - also shown on the screen grab below). The text may well be ignored by most visitors (who will likely be drawn straight to product images) but it still serves a purpose. dekstop.png When it comes to smaller mobile screens I have started to disable the opening paragraph of text (above the products) and instead place a copy of it below the products, (screen grab below). This keeps the optimized text on the page, but it means that mobile users instantly see products rather than having to scroll past text that they may see as inconvenient. mobile.png I'm conscious of the fact that Google indexes mobile content first, and it also doesn't like duplicate content. I therefore have three questions relating to this: Will moving the optimized text content below all the products to the bottom of the page devalue it (I understand important content should be as near to the top of page as possible)? Although the optimized paragraph of text only displays once on desktop (at the top of the page) and once on mobile (at the bottom of the page) it is actually visible twice in the source code - does this count as duplication, and could it therefore hurt the performance of the page in SERPs? If this practice does cause issues, is there an ideal way to optimize content on pages (especially shop category pages) that doesn't require mobile users to scroll through text before seeing products? Lastly, on topic optimized landing pages that feature product promotions such as this one - https://www.scamblermusic.com/royalty-free-music-downloads/music-licensing-scotland/ - I wonder if it is best to lead with an optimized text introduction above product images, or better to place the products right at the top of the page for immediate impact, then follow this with the content/article/blog post? Many thanks for any advice offered.
On-Page Optimization | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?
Hi guys, I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out. Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Mixing hyphens and underscores in a url
Hello. I am working on a site that was built with underscores in the urls, but only in the page names, not in the subdirectories. All the subdirectories have one-word names. So a typical url is "example.com/sub1/sub2/page_name." We would like to change the name of one of the subdirectories to a name that would be very useful for SEO, but this new name is a hyphenated word, let's call it "new-sub." If we changed "sub2" to "new-sub" then our url would have a mix of underscores and hyphens: example.com/sub1/new-sub/page_name. But if I used "new_sub" instead, google would read the words as connected with an underscore, instead of reading the subdirectory as a hyphenated word, which would be less useful for SEO. It seems like it might be a problem to have a hyphen in a subdirectory and underscores in the page names. But I want the SEO value of the hyphenated word. Any recommendations? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0