Domain Name Dilemma: Do Dashes or Underscores Goose Google Rankings More?

Written by John Gergye
It's a fact. When it comes to Google ranking you don't have to
be a lot better to beat out the competition.

So let's take another dip into the "every little bit helps"
pool.

Now believe it or not there are those who like to debate the
merits of using dashes or underscores in domain names.

Some assert dashes are better.

Some have an ongoing love affair with underscores.

Others are certain there is no difference.

I agree you do get a bit of a bounce in Google if you do this
right. But it's only marginal.
Still let's end this debate once and for all and PROVE which is
better.

To sort this out we need to conduct a study. Using the Google
search results to test if Google treats dashes or underscores
the same or differently.

The guinea pig search term I picked is "affordable search
engine placement".

There's nothing special about it. It's more or less your
run-of-the-mill multi-word search term.

So let's get searching.

First, to set a benchmark I cast the broadest net possible by
doing a simple search using

affordable search engine placement

Google returned these results:

Searched the web for affordable search engine placement.
Results 1 - 10 of about 78,600

That simply says there were 78,600 pages indexed by Google for
ANY of those keywords.

Next I searched on the same phrase only this time I separated
the words by dashes like this:

affordable-search-engine-placement

Google turned up these results:

Searched the web for affordable-search-engine-placement.
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,160.

As you can see our term with dashes gave considerably fewer
results than the one without.

Then I searched on the same words separated by underscores:

affordable_search_engine_placement

For this one Google didn't find much:

Searched the web for affordable_search_engine_placement.
Results 1 - 4 of about 6.

Whoa! Next to no pages with underscores, right?

Finally I searched for

"affordable search engine placement"

Note the quotes. Using quotes limits the search results to one
specific phrase. Just like you were doing an advanced search
for that exact phrase.

In this case Google returned these results:

Searched the web for "affordable search engine placement".
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,160.

Huh, exactly the same number of pages as with the keyword
phrase with dashes.

Okay so what do we got?

Let's see. The first search returns what you could say is a
free for all of listings with any of the words in the keyword
phrase. That's why there are so many search results.

SIDEBAR: Reality check time. This is how most search. In
fact I saw a stat the said only 3% use the advanced search
feature provided by Google. Yet the dramatically bigger number
of resulting SERPS explains why it is harder to rank high
sometimes. Reason being you are going up against a whole bunch
more pages - some unrelated to what is being searched for. So
it's takes more juice, ie on-page optimization, internal links
and maybe even in bound links to come out on top.

Now our study also showed the phrase with underscores (which
Google treats as any other CHARACTER) produced negligible
results. As in next to none.

While the keyword phrase with dashes and the exact phrase
search turned up the same number of listings.

At this point you should be wondering "Why is that?"

Glad you asked. Even if you didn't let me explain. Oh and
since this is important engage your brain NOW.

The reason for this apparent match of search results is Google
uses the dash to separate the words in the phrase. Programmers
call this a "delimiter". In essence Google sees it as a space
or separator between the words. Or in other words Google
treats the dash as a spacer.

Yet Google does NOT treat the underscore as a delimiter. Again
to Google it's just another character.

Which is proven by the search results. Had Google treated the
dash and underscore alike the number of SERPs returned for

affordable_search_engine_placement

or

affordable-search-engine-placement

would be identical. But as you saw they are not. Not even
close.

So to answer the original question of which is better dashes or
underscores is obvious isn't it? You want to go with dashes in
your domain names, folder names, files names etc.

That's because using dashes to separate the words will give you
the biggest Google impact -whatever that impact may be. Since
Google can parse the different words. While using underscores
won't help one iota.

Look. This isn't theory or speculation. It's fact. And you
can repeat the same searches with any keyword phrase you want
and you'll get the same results.

In any case let's be real. Don't expect some kind of massive
boost from this dash trick. Sure it can help at tad as part of
an over all optimization scheme. But whether or not you use
dashes in a domain, folder or file name is not going to be what
gets you top Google listings. Content and links are.

Still this study settles the debate about dashes and
underscores. Giving you yet another little thing you can do to
rank well.

How much is more traffic worth to your business? Take John Gergye’s Search Engine Quiz and get a special report "Coming Out On Top" with 49 tools that make it easy to get more traffic. http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml

This article is provided By Webmaster Global

 

Congratulations to this most illuminating treatment of the subject. Which, by the way, supports everything I can observe so far.

 

I am a bit new to all this, so please bear with me, but doesn't that assume that the rules when searching on Google are the same as the algorithm the spiders use?

I.e. Isn't it possible that, when searching, underscores equate to exact match whereas dashes equate to phrase match. When using a broad search Google even returns instrings in onelongdomainname, so how can one be sure it won't do that with underscores and/or dashes?

 

Interesting. Except for one thing. Your statement is about the use of dashes/underscores in domain names. Your search had nothing to do with domain names. You're right (as Google staff themselves have stated in posts elsewhere) if paths are your question.

In terms of domain names though, search terms are highlighted equally in domain names both with and without underscores when examining results.

 

Okay, underscores bad. But if I am considering a domain name for my site about, say, lint for sale, am I better off going with lintforsale.com or lint-for-sale.com?

 

Rule #1: If it can't hurt, but might possibly--even remotely possibly--help, do it.

Can using hyphens in a domain name help? Maybe, just maybe. That G highlights elements within compounded terms (that is, can highlight search in searchengine) on foundpages does not prove that it can see that as a distinct word in the finding process--it only proves that, mechanically, it can match it when given the whole term.

Can using hyphens in a domain name hurt? I have yet to see even an out-of-left-field theory that suggests any way in which it could.

Take it from there.

 

Great post, mddv!

This article confirms my tests: Google doesn't consider underscore as a word delimiter.

I didn't tested the weight of keywords in URL as a criteria in Google's algorithm, but I know that we should use hyphen instead of underscores.

Best regards,
PR Weaver

 

Very interesting thread. Good work!

 

Get both..

use lint-for-sale.com on your site (since it MAY help with the SERPs)
and forward linforsale.com to the site, since it's most likely that people will type in (and remember) that one....
Hyphenated domains usually gets very few type-ins compared to the non-hyphenated ones..


Just my $.02...

 

Great idea. However, if I already own the unhyphenated domain and acquire and move my site to the hyphenated domain, I should have all my incoming links changed to point to the hyphenated domain too, right? Incoming links pointing to a forwarded domain are worthless, aren't they? That could be a lot of work.

 

Excellent article. And as far as I know, you cannot have underscores in a domain name anyway. Only in the file names. Has this changed?

 

I was just going to say that mopacfan - underscores are NOT legit in domain names per the RFC's - it is a common misconception that you can use them.

You can, of course, use them in the pathname component.

 

No.

You don't need to do anything about the incoming links save to establish a 301-Redirect from the old site to the new, which can be accomplished with a line or two in the .htaccess file in the root directory that the old URL points to. The whole rest of that URL is immaterial.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} unhyphenatedname.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.hyphenated-name.com/$1 [L,R=301]​

(You can play with the permutations of the with/without www to your heart's content.)

With that done, any link to the old, unhyphenated domain will be seen by the 'bots as "translated" to a link to the new, hyphenated domain. The only caveat is the standard one for 301 redirects: G and the rest take their bloody sweet time about the whole thing--it's like establishing a new site. But, in the fullness of time, it all comes round.

 

I think it's more about your optimazation and not just "to dash" or "not to dash" .

But. If your company name CanBeLikeThat.Com it maybe even better than Can-Be-Like-That.com .
This is my epinion, and I am sure there will be some that will urge that I am wrong, my 2cents, concetrate more on optimazation and don't waste too much time on Domain picking, I know, it can be a real headace...

Good luck.

 

Well, I use a hypen in my website, not too bad actually. Better avoid the underscore because it's even harder to type in.

 

This is kind of an old thread, but as mentioned above, you don't need to "worry" about using underscores in your domain name ... because you can't! ;-)

 

Im glad this got bumped, i was wondering about whether to use hyphens or underscores on my filenames. seems hyphens are the way to go.

 

Yeah i have been annoyed by some of the recent bumps but this one gave me some good information.. so I guess I need to calm down.

 

domain names without dashes will always be superior

 

Not anymore, that I know.