Special Characters in Keywords

[Stew222]

Do search engines consider keywords such as "1099 E-File Software" & "1099 "EFile Software" the same?

Many of the keywords for my website will have a dash "-" when properly spelled out but there are many users who would simply omit it when spelling the word.  Another example would be "W-2 Software" as opposed to "W2 Software".

[JCurrier]

I just did a search for both of your examples and it appears that the answer is, yes. You should be perfectly fine whichever way you go. However, if you know that your audience/customers/prospects use a specific way of writing the keyword over the other, then that will be the one you should go with.

[TopFloor]

Michael,

Great question.  I always look at Google's Keyword planner to see how it treats it.  Couple things I noticed.  1) Google doesn't see a difference between lower-case and uppercase "E" in e-file.  2) Google lists 30 exact match searches for 1099 e-file software and none for 1099 efile software.

I would probably go with "e-file" as the target keyword, and perhaps use "efile" in the text and alt-image text, just as a backup.

Eric