Separating words in URLS using hyphens vs. "no separator"

[ThomasHgenhaven]

Hi there

There won't be any first order SEO difference. But there are some second order benefits to the hyphened URLs. As they are more readable by humans, they tend to be clicked more often in SERPs and gain more natural links.

Best,

Thomas

[Webdannmark]

The difference in interpretation by search engines will not be huge, but it's still worth sticking to the more readable hyphenated version. Also you don't risk the search engines misreading some urls due to new unwanted words forming from other words in a "no separation" scenario.

[Dan-Petrovic]

This post is deleted!

[clolsen]

My real reason for asking the question is, that I have a rather large site using the "no separation" method, and I wonder if it is worth the effort to change it.

So - I think hypenation is better for readability, but it will be quite a job to do it propertly, so I'm not sure if changing to hypenation it is worth it or not (with 301'ing etc).

I'm leaning towards using it for new pages (except this make the site look somewhat inconsistent).

[Webdannmark]

If you already have a big structure running on a "no-separation" setup don't change it. The upside will not outweigh the potential disruption you cause. Do it for your new pages only.

[Dan-Petrovic]

Exactly - Don't touch it. Start with new pages and you'll be fine. Even Google admits that 301 may not always pass all the goodness across.

[ThomasHgenhaven]

Well. It's a lot of work and entails some risk to redirect many files. That being said, I have redirected thousands of URLs over the last couple of years and have yet to see it fail.

While it is a lot of work to change many URLs, I really appreciate consistency on a website, and prefer all URLs to follow the same structure. So I would probably redirect all the URLs.

I suppose you are working with the Bruel & Kjær website - and I can see there are several types of URLs now - no hyphens and with space as a separator. Adding yet another type of URLs will be at least somewhat confusing.

[AaronSchinke]

Awesome. Love seeing real world examples.

[clolsen]

Agree - this is the issue. Especially the "space" separators definately needs fixing, so the question here is related to deciding the new strategy on this.

• thanks for taking the time to check it out :-).

[ThomasHgenhaven]

I know many people disagree with me on this one, but I would go big and get it fixed once and for all. The problem is only going to be worse when you get more content on the website.

Good luck with the work!

[BlinkWeb]

lets not forget - therapist.com

[Dan-Petrovic]

Suggested title tag:therapist: You need it if you can't read it.

[TheEspresseo]

This makes me wonder whether one can ever get extra mileage out of word merging, for SEO or branding purposes. keyphraSEOlogy.com sticks out in my mind...

[zealmedia]

Love those examples, brightened up a Tuesday morninig.