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John Mueller

An question from the X-Twitter world: In the domain name, is the use of dash ( - ) recommended or not?

- It's fine
- Pick a domain name for your brand for the long run, don't just collect keywords (the common reason for dashes). Build out a domain.
- For SEO, dashes are very minimally better in URLs than underscores. Don't change your URLs for them tho. Don't use spaces, commas, colons, etc in URLs.
- Your domain name is never going to make or break your SEO.

@johnmu Domain will never make or break your SEO......however it will help if you get one which will match the main searches. No dash better than dash but dash with the right keywords is better than no dash without good keyword


(IMHO)

@Nick I don't think either of those are the case. From a branding or marketing POV, *maybe* (eg, if you have the URL in an offline ad, it can be easier to remember). I would venture a guess that the SEO effect is less than the mention of the word on the page, and at that point, is that still worth focusing on?

(And yes, I know, I know, SEOs sometimes focus on the smallest things, but TBH that's super-inefficient and gives a bad reputation.)

@johnmu This is most of the problem i feel. We 'think' these things don't affect it but we're never quite sure. In AdWords i can conclusively tell you it does affect ad ranking as i've seen it play out over 100s of accounts. However i can only assume it does in SEO #smokeandmirrors 😁
ti22.proAkkoma

@johnmu hm, as long as keyword domains work, people will use them. Maybe Google can delete this bonus finally?

@hig Do they really work though? I think it's a lot of "keyword in the domain" plus "there's a lot of other SEO things we do" -- and I don't think you can separate out the effect of a word in a domain. They can be cool for branding, they can be memorable, but I don't think you get any measurable SEO bonus out of it. (It would be totally weird to do that, anyone can buy a domain name; it's not a sign of relevance.)

@johnmu ich schreib mal auf deutsch. Geht schneller. Schau mal nach Webdesign Bremen bei Google. Das erste Ergebnis ist in keiner Metrik besser aber hat halt Backlinks mit dem Keyword weils ja der Name ist, dann weiß Google ja nicht wann jemand nach dem Business und wann jemand nach dem Keyword sucht und dann schreiben die ihren Content halt genauso. Alles bisschen shady und shitty aber es geht halt immer noch.

@johnmu @nbwpuk - Don’t optimise your sites for search engines, especially people farming surveillance capitalists like Google, but for people.

@aral @johnmu yes, very true, but how do people find your site?

Looking at the stats, the vast majority "Google it".

So as much as we want to write for passion, writing with search engines in mind helps make it a success 👍

@nbwpuk @aral If you really don't want search engines, it's easy to block them. Some people do care about them, since they can bring a lot of interested people to their pages, even if they're not selling anything. ...

And lots of people are ambivalent (which I had to search to check the spelling, I would miss that), which includes a lot of people at Google fwiw - they focus on their actual product (maps, flights, docs, cloud, etc), not on SEO, which is also fine.

@johnmu John Mueller: "[caveats] ... dashes are minimally better in URLs... [more caveats]"
Industry blogger: "John Mueller says that dashes are better. This is the key to SEO success."
SEO Industry: *spends the next 3 months updating URLs*
SEO Conferences: "Let's rename to 'SEO DashCon.' We need a keynote speaker to talk about dashes in URLs."

@keithgoode And then 7 years of mourning when I mention dashes are out. We've been around the block a few times, huh. :)

@johnmu Trust in Google to find out what better works between your site and humanity.

@johnmu I am based in South Africa and I have a supplier who sells two products from their website.

On SEMrush their website has 0% organic traffic, 0% organic keywords, 0 paid keywords, 0 paid traffic, 0 referencing domains and no domain authority score.

We are both targeting the same brand name keyword but the supplier has the keyword with exact match in his domain and always ranks no. 1.

If the keyword in the domain isn't the key how are they ranking no. 1?

DM for examples ✌️👽🇿🇦

@johnmu here is a screen shot of my domain SEO stats alongside the supplier. Both websites are not eligible for paid media under Google's policies so we have to rely on SEO to drive traffic.

If keyword domain isn't making them no. 1 what is?

@marsman33 There's a lot more involved with ranking than just the domain name, so I don't think that's an "all things are otherwise equal" comparison. Anyone can buy a domain name with a keyword in it, that doesn't mean the content is somehow relevant to users (the search teams could be greatly reduced if it just needs to check the word in the domain name :-)).