Is it a bad idea to hyphenate keywords?

[SallieJ]

Hello, my understanding was that Google reads hyphens in keywords as spaces, but if that's accurate how come keywords with hyphens that I research with Keyword Explorer — for instance, hospital-acquired infections — rank lower when I include the hyphen? If the hyphen hurts SEO, do I have to remove them all from the blog or page in question? Removing hyphens means a blog or page will have punctuation errors, which is irritating to an editor, but I don't want to sacrifice the effectiveness of keywords, either.

Thanks, in advance, for your response!

[donsilvernail]

Hi SallieJ,

The problem with hyphens is not how google sees them but search intent.

Most people are not going to add the hyphen in when searching. One of the main focus points of seo is answering the search intent of the user. so if the user is not likely to use a hyphen then maybe you should not use a hyphen in the main technical seo points of your content. However, I do not think this should apply to the body of your content on page. This refers more to content descriptions or page titles. Proper use of grammar can be used for what is seen on page.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

[SallieJ]

Thank you for your quick response! And, just so I'm clear, by "main technical seo points" you're referring to meta title, meta description, headline? Also, how about H1s, H2s, etc.?

Thanks again!

Sallie

[donsilvernail]

Yeah exactly,

But with headings and such you could probably test and tweak. Run it with hyphen see how traffic is then change to no hyphen see if it drops or increases. It really is going to be based on the specifics of the hyphenated word and may require some testing. Can you run an a/b title test on your blog?

My experience is that most of the time the hyphen does not matter so much, but i tend to leave them out in the main technical seo.

Thanks,

[SallieJ]

I'll look into a/b testing. Thanks again!