Are-Too-Many-Dashes-Viewed-As-Spam?

The CMS I'm using takes the title of the article and creates a search engine friendly URL. So if the title is "How to get good SE Rankings" it would be /how-to-get-good-se-rankings. This seems like it could set off some sort of filter. I remember Matt Cutts saying something in his blog about how if you have something like -health-insurance-for-mesothelioma.info/learn-about-mesothelioma-while-buying-car-insurance, it could hurt you.

Any evidence on this one? I've heard that you shouldn't have any more than 3 hyphens, but want to see if anyone has real evidence on this one.

 

I guess the other alternative is to loose the dashes and use /

eg
-health-insurance-for-mesothelioma.info/learn/about/mesothelioma/while/buying/car/insurance

I have no idea if that's a better idea, or will get you penalised - just a suggestion

 

Besides, keywords in the URL are a very very small factor, not likely to make much of a difference in rankings anyways. If you can get a keyword or two in, then great. Too many not only looks like spam, it's unprofessional.

 

Yeah, I agree. I'm using Joomla, which is a nice open source CMS, but the Search-Engine-Friendly URL component makes them look kinda spammy by default. I noticed that ezinearticles seems to have URLs like this, and I've seen them a few times in the SERPs though.

 

Personally, I think more than 1 dash in a URL looks spammy, but for the actual filename I'm used to seeing site with tons of dashes just due to the content management system they are using:

http://www.nysba.org/Content/Naviga...ducational_Pamphlets/Educational_Services.htm

http://www.isaca.org/Content/Naviga...ormation_Systems_Control_Journal_Ad_Rates.htm

http://www.nada.org/Content/Navigat...g_the_U_S__Economy/Driving_the_US_Economy.htm

 

Personally i also think that having 2-3 - in url of a page is a way of spamming and even i too do it, but i havent seen google penalize it, infact i too started the same after analyzing that other sites didnt got penalized for the same. But i think that idea suggested by STEW is very good that instead of - use / like - health-insurance-for-mesothelioma.info/learn/about/mesothelioma/while/buying/car/insurance

But here the problem could be to get your pages indexed in google otherwise it is a safe bet for future.

 

what about having more than 2-3 - in domain names? Isnt that spam as well?

 

Actually, they are not algorithmically interpreted as spam by Google, no matter how many you use:

Matt Cutts:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

regarding the example he provides, the key words are "other reasons"

 

Good reference kkibak.

A dash or two seems to do just fine in Google - I've seen several that get top billing in SERP with a few dashes, even some with three; however, I've never seen one beyond that ... a little dab may do ya, but too many may do ya in ... ?

 

Thanks kkibak, I was too lazy to find the actual blog entry I wonder what the "other reasons" are based on, algorithmically speaking. Repetitive keyword spam? Maybe it needs to be closer to a valid sentence format than just /noun-keyword-nounkw-noun-kw.com

 

No prob I was just reading it the other day because a client was telling me I was wrong when I recommended he use dashes as opposed to underscores Me 1 Client 0. haha just kidding

 

I wouldn't be surprised if repetition in the url is algorithmically penalized...

It would be interesting to know exactly what matt meant by other reasons. obviously a manual spam report would be one possibility, but in terms of algorithms i can't think of anything other than repetition that could be identified.

 

I-agree-with-Shannon. Too-many-dashes-looks-spammy. It-may-not-get-you-penalized-by-Google-but-will-a-visitor-click-on-your-spammy-looking-link?

 

come-on-minstrel-you-try-to-make-a-point-about-spam-but-really-i-think-it-only-proves-that-urls-with-dashes-dare-you-read-the-whole-thing-even-though-you-wanted-to-stop-about-ten-or-twelve-words-ago-i-could-really-ramble-on-and-on-like-this-forever-but....

 

"Hey-I-don't-need-to-hang-around-here-to-be-insulted-I-have-hundreds-of-people-waiting-to-insult-me" ~ Bill-Murray-in-Ghostbusters

 

I think people familiar with SEO definitely view it as spammy, I know that I do... However, I'd be interested to see which URL the general public is more likely to click on. Example: car insurance quotes

#1 - blah.com/quote.php?1565681

or

#2 - blah.com/personalized-car-insurance-quotes

Just based on the fact that people are more likely to click on adwords ads that have their exact search phrase in it, I think they might be more likely to click the #2 (if they look at the URL at all).

 

In my opinion, domain names are much more likely to get labeled as spam algorithmicly with multiple dashes rather than file names and directory trees....

Humans definetly register the domain name, but file names and directory trees can be made via software and site owner may have no control over it....

In my opinion, if dashes ever become a problem, it really should be within the domain name itself, before the file name..

stuffing-my-keywords.com/stuff-this.html ---- Probably Spam
stuffmykeywords.com/stuff-this.html ----- Might by Spam?

 

i just came across these domains
kerala-ayurveda-backwater-beach-tours dot com
so u can have as many dashes in domain names as you like and its not spam?

 

seoindia, what is filtered out as spam by Google and what will be seen as spammy by human visitors are two different things.

As I said earlier, using a lot of hyphenated keywords in your URL may get you to a good ranking in Google or other search engines. However, getting people to click on your link is another matter (I wouldn't). Getting people to stay at your site long enough to buy something is yet another matter.