Is Using Hyphens In Page Url Considered Spam by Google Algo?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by Deepankar Rawat, Aug 18, 2015.

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  1. #1
    As with the recent updation in Google's algo. Is Using Hyphens In Page Url Considered Spam by Google Algo?

    If yes then why? Please give some references also.
     
    Deepankar Rawat, Aug 18, 2015 IP
  2. crick3t

    crick3t Active Member

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    #2
    This is a long disputed discussion but Google treats a hyphen as a word separator.
     
    crick3t, Aug 19, 2015 IP
  3. mikhailblaze

    mikhailblaze Member

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    #3
    Not really, because as what the Cricket said, it acts as a word separator. It's not spammy (unless if your site is), but I'd avoid it if I were you. Why?

    • There are spam sites like free-marketing-buttons.com and free-seo-tools.com that show up on my analytics. These spam sites somehow give hyphens a bad rep.
    • Your users won't like it....because it sucks and makes your domain name hard to encode and remember.
     
    mikhailblaze, Aug 19, 2015 IP
  4. Deepankar Rawat

    Deepankar Rawat Active Member

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    #4
    actually i am not talking about domain name but the page name inner pages : Like (domainname)(.)com/what-my-keyword-is
     
    Deepankar Rawat, Aug 19, 2015 IP
  5. mikhailblaze

    mikhailblaze Member

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    #5
    Oh crap, my bad. Sorry bout that.

    Anyway, it's fine. Google treats it as a word separator, and everybody does it. I'm running several websites using WordPress, and the blog titles are automatically hyphenated. So yeah, nothing to worry about.
     
    mikhailblaze, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  6. Deepankar Rawat

    Deepankar Rawat Active Member

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    #6
    Are you sure that my site will not suffer in future if i use hyphen in my page urls. have you read the latest google algorithm updates.
     
    Deepankar Rawat, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  7. King Manu

    King Manu Active Member

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    #7
    Well, you can take this forum for example. forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/is-using-hyphens-in-page-url-considered-spam-by-google-algo.2761784/ ;)
    Nothing wrong about this, just a word separator. My WordPress website have this as well !
    Still not convinced? Check out this video by Matt Cutts :




    I know this isn't a updated info, but if what you said was true, we all are spammers. So it's not something real or plausible.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2015
    King Manu, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  8. mikhailblaze

    mikhailblaze Member

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    #8
    I have, and I guess it makes every website in the Internet spammy then.

    On a serious note, most of our clients' websites (I work for an SEO company) didn't suffer any drop in the SERPs ever since the algo update went live. There's nothing to worry about.

    Remember, the quality of a website isn't determined by spam alone ;)
     
    mikhailblaze, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  9. Deepankar Rawat

    Deepankar Rawat Active Member

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    #9
    I am Talking about the pages in my website not url of my website. :)
     
    Deepankar Rawat, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  10. 5ervant

    5ervant Active Member

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    #10
    Using hyphens or dashes in a web page's URL is not considered as spam by Google Algorithm.
    Look at the posts' URLs of the Official Google Blog, they're using dashes: http://googleblog.blogspot.com

    There's nothing wrong with that, actually, I prepared to use dashes in URLs rather than underscores.
    And this video also suggest the use of dashes:
     
    5ervant, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  11. F--K

    F--K Well-Known Member

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    #11
    It is perfectly alright to use hyphen in your URL structure, Don't you see most of the big blogs doing that already?
     
    F--K, Aug 23, 2015 IP
  12. tk-hassan

    tk-hassan Member

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    #12
    Google doesn't consider it as spam. Almost every website is using it, not sure why are your asking such question.
     
    tk-hassan, Aug 24, 2015 IP
  13. Leilani Sniffen

    Leilani Sniffen Greenhorn

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    #13
    Tried Google to see if using hyphens can get you banned. Found this site: http://www.werockyourweb.com/domain-name-with-or-without-hyphens/ Found it interesting about using hyphens within a domain name.

    Hope this helps.

    Leilani
     
    Leilani Sniffen, Aug 24, 2015 IP