Hyphens in domain names or NO hyphens in domain names ...

[CorpRebel]

To Be OR Not To Be ... Oops SORRY!

What is the "scoop" on using hyphens in domain and sub-domain names?? Does it REALLY make a difference? I know it makes it more readable. Do SEs look at it more differently?

I never really thought about it before ...

Thanks!


Rick Wilson aka CorpRebel

[Lynn Terry]

I'm sure Sharon & Roy will be by later to give a more detailed reply, but in the meantime, check out this recent post:

The Underscore vs. Hyphen Debate For File Names

[Guest]

Thanks for that link Lynn!

Just read thru it quickly. Bookmarked it too. My head is SPINNING with the info! Outta my league ... But interesting!


Ciao!

Rick Wilson aka CorpRebel

[CorpRebel]

I know... I know ...

I need to "login"!

Sheesh ...


The CorpRebel

[Sharon & Roy]

What is the "scoop" on using hyphens in domain and sub-domain names??

Hi Rick,

As Lynn pointed out, the article we wrote should answer most of your questions, but if you still have some, please don't hestitate to ask them here.

Does it REALLY make a difference?

Rick, using a hyphen in your domain name has BOTH pros and cons depending on what your INTENT is.

If your intent is to use your domain name to help your search engine rankings then use hyphens.

If your intent is not to use your domain name to help your search engine rankings then you don't need to use hyphens.

I know it makes it more readable. Do SEs look at it more differently?

Yes, the search engines can parse the keywords when a hyphen is used.

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy

[Lynn Terry]

If your intent is to use your domain name to help your search engine rankings then use hyphens.

If your intent is not to use your domain name to help your search engine rankings then you don't need to use hyphens.

Good point, Sharon & Roy

Name branding & offline marketing would be good reasons to use a domain name without hyphens...

Would it be wise to use more than one domain name if you were marketing both online and offline?

I know that the search engines recognize parked or virtual domains... as when Amy switched Tranquil Moments to Honeysuckle Cove we kept the old domain name parked so that she didnt lose customers who knew her by that name:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=U ... uilmoments

So - in Dan's case for example - would it be wise to use both WAHumor.com and Work-at-Home-Humor.com for this reason? (pending keyword research, of course, to choose that hyphenated domain name)

This is definitely something to think about... its a small investment of $18.95 ($8.95 for the additional domain name and a $10 one-time fee to park it on your hosting account - this is what my host charges, but of course that may vary)

I've been thinking a lot lately about changing the name of this site... SelfStartersWeeklyTips is not exactly spider food, if you know what I mean. While I realize that I can optimize my pages, and promote my site in other ways, to the point of achieving an ideal amount of traffic, I also know that changing the name of the newsletter and the domain name would be very beneficial from an SEO viewpoint.

Obviously I have a personal attachment to the name so I dont know for sure that I would want to change it... however, its something I've thought about... and I may at least register and park a few "keyword domains".

Sharon & Roy - I'd love to hear your take on this - Am I off base, or is this a wise investment to make?

[Sharon & Roy]

The EASIEST way to obtain high rankings is to build ONE domain and to create hundreds of subdirectories and thousands of pages.

If your intent is to use your domain name to help your search engine rankings then use hyphens.

If your intent is not to use your domain name to help your search engine rankings then you don't need to use hyphens.

Good point, Sharon & Roy

Name branding & offline marketing would be good reasons to use a domain name without hyphens...

Would it be wise to use more than one domain name if you were marketing both online and offline?

Hi Lynn,

Having TWO domain NAMES for just ONE domain is an idea that we will go along with if the client INSISTS when it comes to Offline promotion AND Online promotion, BUT this is NOT something that we would ever recommend.

Our HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION is to build ONE domain and to create hundreds of subdirectories and thousands of pages.

Having BOTH domains with mirrored content is Spam, so make sure you only put CONTENT on the domain that you will promote Online and simply keep your other domain EMPTY (meaning, no content and just a blank Home Page).

Next you will need to create a permanent redirect from the empty domain to your content domain.

PLEASE NOTE: Don't use JavaScript or Meta Redirects as they are Spam. Google recommends to use a permanent redirect (using a "301" code in HTTP headers).

Source: http://www.google.com/webmasters/3.html#A2

I know that the search engines recognize parked or virtual domains... as when Amy switched Tranquil Moments to Honeysuckle Cove we kept the old domain name parked so that she didnt lose customers who knew her by that name:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=U ... uilmoments

So - in Dan's case for example - would it be wise to use both WAHumor.com and Work-at-Home-Humor.com for this reason? (pending keyword research, of course, to choose that hyphenated domain name)

Yes, it would be okay, as long as you follow our advice to the letter.

This is definitely something to think about... its a small investment of $18.95 ($8.95 for the additional domain name and a $10 one-time fee to park it on your hosting account - this is what my host charges, but of course that may vary)

Just make sure that the REDIRECTION is enabled server side and all will be fine.

I've been thinking a lot lately about changing the name of this site... SelfStartersWeeklyTips is not exactly spider food, if you know what I mean. While I realize that I can optimize my pages, and promote my site in other ways, to the point of achieving an ideal amount of traffic, I also know that changing the name of the newsletter and the domain name would be very beneficial from an SEO viewpoint.

Obviously I have a personal attachment to the name so I dont know for sure that I would want to change it... however, its something I've thought about... and I may at least register and park a few "keyword domains".

Sharon & Roy - I'd love to hear your take on this - Am I off base, or is this a wise investment to make?

Lynn ... To register and park a few "keyword domains" ... is a bad idea, a VERY bad idea.

This really does bear repeating ...

Our HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION is to build ONE domain and to create hundreds of subdirectories and thousands of pages.

When people begin to learn about SEO, false logic tells them that creating and crosslinking multiple domains is the route to high rankings for their keywords.

WRONG!

It is the route to getting penalized or banned.

This strategy is often seen coming from those who advocate what they refer to as mini-sites or multi-sites or doorways or gateways, or smart-pages, or information-pages or product-sites, or whatever the latest "flavor of the month" happens to be.

Crosslinking multiple domains with the intent of attaining high rankings (in a closed loop) is Spam and always will be, no matter what anyone calls it.

The EASIEST way to obtain high rankings is to ...

... Build ONE domain and to create hundreds of subdirectories and thousands of pages.

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy

[Lynn Terry]

Right - and I agree with you on that... I was thinking more along the lines of a parked or virtual domain that points to the same website as the primary domain - that you could use for offline promotion (not in an attempt to use up as many keywords as possible across several domain names).

For example, if I DID decide to change my newsletter, I'd keep the current domain active as a parked domain, but would change the new name to the primary domain on the account, etc...

Good points made here - Thanks!!

[Sharon & Roy]

Right - and I agree with you on that... I was thinking more along the lines of a parked or virtual domain that points to the same website as the primary domain - that you could use for offline promotion (not in an attempt to use up as many keywords as possible across several domain names).

For example, if I DID decide to change my newsletter, I'd keep the current domain active as a parked domain, but would change the new name to the primary domain on the account, etc...

Hi Lynn,

Not sure we're following you here, so we'll ask you some questions to clarify.

Let's say that you decide to change the DOMAIN NAME of your current domain ...

http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/

... To ...

http://www.new-domain-name.com/


Now, would you ...


1.) Remove ALL content from http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ and move it to http://www.new-domain-name.com/ ?

2.) Want to have http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ REMAIN in the search engine listings?

3.) Want to have ALL interior pages from http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ REMAIN in the search engine listings?

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy

[Lynn Terry]

... I was thinking more along the lines of a parked or virtual domain that points to the same website as the primary domain...
...For example, if I DID decide to change my newsletter, I'd keep the current domain active as a parked domain, but would change the new name to the primary domain on the account, etc...

Let's say that you decide to change the DOMAIN NAME of your current domain ...

http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/

... To ...

http://www.new-domain-name.com/


Now, would you ...


1.) Remove ALL content from http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ and move it to http://www.new-domain-name.com/ ?

No, not at all. I'd simply point a new domain name to the same account. You can point as many domain names as you like to the same hosting account - one being named the primary domain, the others being "parked" or "virtual" domains. They all point to the same IP Address.

2.) Want to have http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ REMAIN in the search engine listings?

Sure Or at least point to the current site during the transition of branding my site/newsletter by the new name (much like the Tranquil Moments / Honeysuckle Cove example above).

3.) Want to have ALL interior pages from http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ REMAIN in the search engine listings?

Yes, of course...

Thoughts??

[Sharon & Roy]

Mirror Pages Are Spam

No, not at all. I'd simply point a new domain name to the same account. You can point as many domain names as you like to the same hosting account - one being named the primary domain, the others being "parked" or "virtual" domains. They all point to the same IP Address.

2.) Want to have http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ REMAIN in the search engine listings?

Sure Or at least point to the current site during the transition of branding my site/newsletter by the new name (much like the Tranquil Moments / Honeysuckle Cove example above).

Thoughts??

Hi Lynn,

That is a NO-NO!

It is wrong and it is Spam!

Okay, took a quick look at ...

http://www.tranquilmoments.net/

... And ...

http://www.honeysucklecove.com/


Look here and you will see the following 2 listings displayed ...

Honeysuckle Cove ~ Pamper Yourself Naturally with our unique Bath ...
Private Labeling and Custom Scenting is available. Contact your Sales
Rep for more details. © Honeysuckle Cove, all rights reserved ...
www.tranquilmoments.net/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

Honeysuckle Cove ~ Pamper Yourself Naturally with our unique Bath ...
Private Labeling and Custom Scenting is available. Contact your Sales
Rep for more details. © Honeysuckle Cove, all rights reserved ...
www.honeysucklecove.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages



Now look here and you will ONLY see the following listing displayed ...

Honeysuckle Cove ~ Pamper Yourself Naturally with our unique Bath ...
Private Labeling and Custom Scenting is available. Contact your Sales
Rep for more details. © Honeysuckle Cove, all rights reserved ...
www.honeysucklecove.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages



Also look here and you will ONLY see the following listing displayed ...

Honeysuckle Cove ~ Pamper Yourself Naturally with our unique Bath ...
Private Labeling and Custom Scenting is available. Contact your Sales
Rep for more details. © Honeysuckle Cove, all rights reserved ...
www.honeysucklecove.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages



You'll also see the exact same results as above for this SERP

Then please note the following statement at the bottom of the above SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) except for the first SERP, because we included the omitted results by adding the "&filter=0" to the URL.

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 4 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.


We show you these SERP to show you that Google displays them as "mirror pages" and that is NOT a good idea.

We're sure that the INTENT for doing so is a GOOD one, but nonetheless from an SEO perspective it is Spam.

You must remove one of the domains and all the pages from the search engines a.s.a.p. ... Well, that is, if SEO and high rankings are a concern for the owner of the site, but if not then there is no nedd to worry about anything.

But we'll assume that high rankings are a concern for the owner and in that case, do this ...


1.) Place the following robots.txt file in the root file of the domain that will be redirected to the other.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /


2.) Place a permanent redirect (using a "301" code in HTTP headers) to the new domain.


Anything other than this setup for "mirror pages" (or entire sites) is Spam.

Another negative aspect when using this Spam technique is that DMOZ will not list your site and will ban it if already listed.

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy


......


http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/f ... =3293#3293


Online SEO Tool To Check For Mirror Pages

Online SEO Tool To Check For Mirror Pages

Hi Lynn,

BTW, here is an Online SEO Tool to check for mirror pages.

http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php

Just enter both URLs and you'll see that they are 100% similar, which make them mirror pages, which makes them Spam to the search engines.


Below is what the tool reports ...

http://www.honeysucklecove.com is 100% percentage similar to http://www.tranquilmoments.net

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy

[Sharon & Roy]

Online SEO Tool To Check For Mirror Pages

Hi Lynn,

BTW, here is an Online SEO Tool to check for mirror pages.

http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php

Just enter both URLs and you'll see that they are 100% similar, which make them mirror pages, which makes them Spam to the search engines.


Below is what the tool reports ...

http://www.honeysucklecove.com is 100% percentage similar to http://www.tranquilmoments.net

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy

[Lynn Terry]

I guess I'm still a little confused... Its a server-side redirect. There are ZERO pages duplicated, and no java or refresh code.

The domain name TranquilMoments.net simply points to the same IP Address as HoneysuckleCove.com .

I'll have to call my host to see exactly what the process is on their end... I'll keep you posted

[networkmom]

Hi, Can you tell me exactly what this means:
The EASIEST way to obtain high rankings is to build ONE domain and to create hundreds of subdirectories and thousands of pages. Can you give me an example for my site www.fitnessandkids.com


Thank you
Denise

[/quote]

[Sharon & Roy]

The Only Non-Spam Way To Redirect Your Pages Is To Use The HTTP 301 Permanent Redirection

I guess I'm still a little confused... Its a server-side redirect.

Hi Lynn,

Yes, you are correct that it is a server side redirect, but it is NOT the CORRECT one.

There are ZERO pages duplicated, and no java or refresh code.

Lynn, there ARE "mirror pages" and they are being created (virtually) because of the WRONG way the domain is being redirected.

The domain name TranquilMoments.net simply points to the same IP Address as HoneysuckleCove.com .

Yes, that is correct, AND that is the PROBLEM and that is what makes it Spam.

I'll have to call my host to see exactly what the process is on their end... I'll keep you posted

Since the site is hosted on a Unix Server, your host simply needs to BLOCK the old domain from the search engine spiders with a robots.txt exclusion file (as shown above) and to create a 301 Redirection in the .htaccess as shown below. Any OTHER redirection is Spam.


.............................

To implement a HTTP 301 Redirection, follow our advice below.

You work with your .htaccess file if you use Apache.

Here is what to do ...

1.) Create a file and name it .htaccess

2.) Place this line of code in the file.

Redirect 301 / http://www.honeysucklecove.com

3.) Upload to your root directory, in which your URL will be ...

http://www.tranquilmoments.net/.htaccess

.............................



Lynn, just did a search to further help you understand what we are attempting to explain to you and found the following (Hope it helps you to see things a bit more clearly, as we know that this is a very common problem for many site owners, and they usually learn this lesson the hard way, after being penalized or banned.) ...

// -- FEATURED POST -- //

==> TOPIC: DOMAIN MANAGEMENT

From: Jay Allen

I have a question for the SEO experts:

I have [two] URLs that I want to go to the same website. One is the URL we actively promote (RochesterClothing.com). The other is the correct name for our company (RochesterBigandTall.com). However, Google and DMOZ are penalizing me for pointing both URLs at the same site (a mirror). How can I do this so that the search engines are happy?

It seems a bit ridiculous that this is a big issue to them. I've always encouraged others to purchase misspelled domain names or names customers may potentially type in a browser. I would argue this is a normal business practice - far from 'spamming.'

[ Moderator Comment ]:

Hello everyone,

Domain Management issues are starting to surface a lot. It looks like your sites are hosted in a virtual IP environment where they both resolve to the same IP (in your case: 208.57.38.233) and are serving the same site from the same content folder. You have an easy time maintaining both sites simultaneously.

Webservers, (particularly Microsoft IIS which you are running on), makes it simple to use DNS to map a number of domain names pointing to same content folder with the same IP address. For a quick test to see if your site is in a virtual IP environment alongside other sites, wether mirrors or not, try an IP filtered search at FAST. If your sites are not in FAST, this will not work.

First get your IP. A quick way to do this is to paste your domain name into www.network-tools.com, and the first data to come back will be your numeric translated IP address. Go to www.alltheweb.com and paste your IP in the IP filter of the Advanced search page. Enter a word that you know is on all your pages, I used: rochester and it returned listings for both your domains.

The problem is the resulting mirror sites end up getting indexed by search engines as duplicates and they don't want to host more than one copy of any Website. Therefore, (and this IIS solution has been okayed by engineers at more than one major crawler), I have been advising clients to concentrate their promotion efforts on their desired domain name, and use the Robots Exclusion protocol to disallow crawling the other sites.

But if you have one content folder, how do you serve different robots.txt files?

Through the use of ISAPI filters in IIS you can intercept the request for the file, check which domain is being requested, and if it's for the domain intended for promotion, the script can return a customized robots.txt syntax disallowing useless stuff. But if the request belongs to any other domain, the request can be sent through to a file with the syntax fully disallowing access completely.

You can test the set up with a browser surfing to the sites' robots.txt files respectively looking for the syntax to be appropriate in each case. You can adapt this idea in whatever way you are comfortable using ISAPI as long as the outcome is the same, and the benefits are that, without worry, you can still operate and maintain a "mini-me" mirror site along with your primary domain.

ISAPI filter documentation:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... /enus/iisr ef/htm/designingisapifilterapplications.asp

It's useful to point out that this technique is not to be extended and abused for requests on other files; for that may constitute cloaking! And because robots.txt is not a content file, but a 'rules' file for robots, it's perfectly reasonable to say that this solution does *not* constitute cloaking as described.

Enjoy!

*cheers*
-detlev

Thanks,
Jay Allen
Rochester Clothing
http://www.RochesterClothing.com

Comment? mailto:search@adventive.com?Subject=DomainManagement

Source: http://list.adventive.com/SCRIPTS/WA.EX ... CH&P=R1525

// -- MODERATOR COMMENT -- //

==> TOPIC: DOMAIN MANAGEMENT

From: Cayley Vos

And for those of you who use apache, this will give you a 301 response. The proper way to deal with multiple domains.

Insert this into your .htaccess file

RedirectPermanent / http://mymainsite.com

Cayley Vos, Principal
http://netpaths.net
web hosting | search engine marketing | web development

[ Moderator Comment ]:

Hello everyone,

You should be able to use mod-rewrite rules with Apache for robots.txt requests, publishing it properly against domain requests for the "mini-me" sites and for sculpting your indexed pages on the main domain. Otherwise you will end up with the same robots.txt for all sites.

*cheers*
-detlev

Comment? mailto:search@adventive.com?Subject=DomainManagement

Source: http://list.adventive.com/SCRIPTS/WA.EX ... &D=0&P=597

Your Friends,

Sharon & Roy