LL owners - a hyphen ratio guideline??

[dareutwo]

With the few hours I do have to work on this, I have been seriously running through stuff.
Many thanks to Ramster |bananna| He simply Rocks!!

As many or you already know, I'm seriously mathematically inclined, but I was wondering if any other LL owner has noticed a ratio between the number of hyphens in the URL to the number of 404's months later.

Or am I simply the |pokefun| Elephant Man?

[Kezza]

Now I feel seriously challenged... because I have no idea what you are asking :(

[natalie]

Yeah I hear you Dareutwo... In a google forum I follow they have speculated on whether google will start to penalise these sites in the future. There is a strong correlation between url withs more than two hyphens and spammy, scammy (throw-away domains) sites. And yes I have noticed this on Punani as well.

[RawAlex]

More so if the hyphens are in the third level domain ie: scammy-shit.somedumbdomain.info

Alex

[abe]

Dare, I think that with statistics you can prove about anything ;)

In some of my domains I use hyphens because I read somewhere that hyphens are seen as spaces by Google (there where an underscore is seen as a character).

[dareutwo]

abe - don't get me wrong.. the serious webmasters will always be serious webmasters.
However, if I get a new submitter with "type-my-domain-in-here.crap" - well I can bet that will be gone within 90 days.
Just an observation on my part, maybe I should get out more.. lol

[abe]

I'm sure you and Alex are right. Experience often is worth more then statistics ;)

Sometimes things like that puzzles me. I told you why I use hyphens.
And I don't use third level domains because I think they are a pita.

But why would a cheater more frequently use hyphens and 3th level domains then honest webmasters?

[natalie]

Hi Abe
Apparently that has changed and now Google ranks a phrase in a url whether it has hyphens for spaces or not. For example if you type real estate into google you get urls such as www.realestate.com.au. Perhaps what I suggested earlier is already occurring. No hyphenes urls are showing in those results before number 95.

[Greenguy]

What's wrong with domains that have hyphens in them? :D

[abe]

I guess you're right Natalie. Google |angry| |angry|
Probably I drunk to much wine tonight. But the value of hyphened domains goes down. So what does cheaters do?

[natalie]

hehe luckily it is only speculation lol...
http://www.link-o-rama.com
http://www.pun-an-i.com
http://www.cleos-porn-links.com

Of course I think I did say MORE than two :D

[dareutwo]

Now marks-links.. :)

[Kezza]

OK... so now I am awake... and I read others responses I see what you meant! doh!

I have not noticed a high number of hyphen domains being deleted when I run my link checker.

Our Link lists did take a bit of bad hit from google before christmas... had not considered it was because of the hyphens:

link-fabulous.com
premium-sex-links.com

Something to consider I suppose :(

[natalie]

Hi Kezza |waves| I doubt thats why they took a hit, we all went down in pr (mine from a 5 to a 4) regardless of hyphens. I think/hope one or two hyphens isn't a prob but some have 4 and subdomains. I don't think its time to hit the panic button :D That said I won't buy any more domains with them if I can help.

[Mishi]

Google is a fickle bitch (but I love her!)...I seem to recall that at one point, Google didn't parse out individual words in non-hyphenated domains. So hyphenated domains became "hot" for a while. But now she seems to find keywords no matter how hard you try to hide them. Next week will probably be different. ;)

[Kezza]

well I am pretty sure that the domain names that have hyphens and no reference to porn will live on
http://www.link-o-rama.com
http://www.pun-an-i.com
http://www.link-fabulous.com etc
these domains are not looking for keywords or phrases in the domain name... they are relying on good content on their pages

[Kezza]

Hi Kezza |waves| .

Hi Natalie |waves|

[Opti]

Hi Abe
Apparently that has changed and now Google ranks a phrase in a url whether it has hyphens for spaces or not. For example if you type real estate into google you get urls such as www.realestate.com.au. Perhaps what I suggested earlier is already occurring. No hyphenes urls are showing in those results before number 95.

Where did that come from Nat?

Pretty sure google still treats - as a space and _ as a unique character.. whether it's in a domain name or in any other word. I'd love to know more info on what you have heard has changed.

[natalie]

Hi Opti, Its from the Google News forum at Webmasterworld (via my other half who does seo as part of his job in a large multimedia company). Yes they treat it as a space still but we are saying that a space is not needed anymore. I couldnt find the actual thread to link to but I recommend it as a great read for anyone serious about seo. (hope i am not in trouble gg)

[Opti]

Thanks Nat... I think I get what you are saying better now... I'd love to read that thread if you find it or anyone else knows it.