Can bots identify shmushed keywords?

[CFSSEO]

I remember reading some years ago that domains and pages that have smushed keywords, such as cheapbaseballs.com/redbaseball.html could be identified by Google as "cheap baseballs" and "red base ball".  Is this still correct?

[MonicaOConnor]

In the URL, yes, they can be identified as key terms. I wouldn't necessarily use your domain as a place for your key terms, but you are correct. The URL string following the domain most often uses hyphens to separate words. A lot of platforms are designed to pull the product name as the URL string, so it just adds hyphens in place of the spaces.

[CFSSEO]

However I'm asking about URLs NOT using hyphens and instead using perfumes.com/chanelnumber5.html.  Would bots identify the words chanel number 5 without hyphen seperation?

[Bio-RadAbs]

Let's say they do, but does that mean you stand a better chance to rank higher than a competitor who uses hyphens? If hyphens represent spaces, and a user searches chanel number 5, doesn't that mean a website that has the url chanel-number-5.html might rank better than chanelnumber5.html.

Similar to a human, it would be easier to read chanel-number-5 than chanelnumber5.

So even if the bot reads a url without a hyphen, a competitor with a hyphen might edge out.

That's my two cents

[MonicaOConnor]

I agree with Cyto. The best practice is to make the URLs easier to read for both humans and bots. The focus should always be user experience. It would be easier to read the URL that contained hyphens, as opposed to the URL without.

[MonicaOConnor]

But to answer you specifically, yes, there is a chance the bots could read the URLs without hyphens.