Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • My Q&A
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    5
    16268
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • StoryScout
      StoryScout last edited by

      Hi guys,

      I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out.

      Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings?

      Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MoosaHemani
        MoosaHemani Banned last edited by

        Just to be clear, here we are talking about URLs and not the domain name because when it comes to domain name my personal advice is not to go fir hyphens as this is not a common practice plus its usually a practice of spammers to use shady domain names.

        As far as URLs are concern it’s a wonderful idea as Lina said they are better than underscores.

        Hope this helps!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Linda-Vassily
          Linda-Vassily @DonnaDuncan last edited by

          Yes, no hyphens in the domain name. Thanks for clarifying, Donna.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • DonnaDuncan
            DonnaDuncan last edited by

            Agree with what LindaLV has said, but want to be sure you're not talking about a domain name. Hyphens used when referencing a file or folder name is good. Hyphens in a domain name is less than ideal.

            So, for example,

            http://www.domainname.com/folder-name/file-name.html is good,

            http://www.domain-name.com/foldername/filename.html is not so good.

            Domain names should be short, memorable, preferably branded, and use no special characters.

            Linda-Vassily 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Linda-Vassily
              Linda-Vassily last edited by

              Hyphens are definitely a good idea. They make the URL easier to read and more user-friendly. (See more about it from Webmaster Tools Help here.)

              "Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs."

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Browse Questions

              Explore more categories

              • Moz Tools

                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

              • SEO Tactics

                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

              • Community

                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

              • Digital Marketing

                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

              • Research & Trends

                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

              • Support

                Connect on product support and feature requests.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • TAT100

                Virtual URL Google not indexing?

                canonical duplicate site structure url issue

                Dear all, We have two URLs: The main URL which is crawled both by GSC and where Moz assigns our keywords is: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/ The second one is called a virtual url by our developpers: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/signedandunsignedprintsforsale/ This is currently not indexed by Google. We have been linking to the second URL and I am unable to see if this is passing juice/anything on to the main one /banksy/ Is it a canonical? The /banksy/ is the one that is being picked up in serps/by Moz and worry that the two similar URLs are splitting the signal. Should I redirect from the second to the first? Thank you

                On-Page Optimization | | TAT100
                0
              • lukegj

                Is the URL Matching the Page Title Important?

                Hello I have tried searching for an answer on this but I can't get a clear answer due to the results when searching for URL title. I have just launched our second Shopify site for one of our brands. My first site launched in 2014 but when I launched I didn't pay much heed to SEO for page titles, URLs, etc so have retrospectively fixed this over time. For my Shopify site just launching I want to get it as right as possible from the start (learning from mistakes). My question is regarding URLs and what my approach should be for better SEO. So, I have a page with a Title of Newton Leather Wallets, Purses, Card Holders & Glasses Cases and the URL is https://www.tumbleandhide.com/collections/newton-leather-wallets-card-holders It was my understanding that I should try and make the URL reflect the Page Title more accurately. The problem is that this takes the character count to 77. On other pages it can be in the 80s. Will the above link be better for SEO than say just https://www.tumbleandhide.com/collections/newton I am just wary of the URL's being too long as my Moz Site Crawl is returning a lot of URLs that are too long. Thanks in Advance.

                On-Page Optimization | | lukegj
                0
              • estebanseo

                Using keywords in my URL: Doing a redirect to /keyword

                My website in "On Page Grade" received an A.Anyway, I only have 1 thing to optimize:_"Use Keywords in your URL__Using your targeted keywords in the URL string adds relevancy to your page for search engine rankings, assists potential visitors identify the topic of your page from the URL, and provides SEO value when used as the anchor text of referring links."_My website is ranking in top10 for a super high competitive keyword and all my others competitors have the keyword on their domain, but not for my URL.Since I can't change my domain for fixing this suggestion, I would like to know what do you think about doing a 301 redirect from / to mydomainname.com/keyword/So the index of my website would be the /keyword.I don't know if this can make a damage to my SERP for the big change ir it would be a great choice.

                On-Page Optimization | | estebanseo
                0
              • Robotnik

                Using a dash or underscores in file names.

                Is it better to use a dash or an underscore in file names to improve SEO? EX memory_flash.jpg or memory-flash.jpg Or does it make no difference?

                On-Page Optimization | | Robotnik
                0
              • K-WINTER

                SEO can id and class be used in H1?

                Can ID and class be used in my H1 tag. I realize best case would be to change it, but it's going to require a change order from the ecommerce company to fix their sloppy code. Will this hurt seo? Example:

                On-Page Optimization | | K-WINTER
                0
              • bizzer

                In counting words for a "long article," do comments count in the word count?

                As Moz and others have proven, long articles help ranking, linking and sharing.  My question is, do the comments at the end of an article count in the word count as Google counts it.

                On-Page Optimization | | bizzer
                0
              • GOODSIR

                Is content aggregation good SEO?

                I didn't see this topic specifically addressed here: what's the current thinking on using content aggregation for SEO purposes? I'll use flavors.me as an example. Flavors.me lets you set up a domain that pulls in content from a variety of services (Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, RSS, etc.). There's also a limited ability to publish unique content as well. So let's say that we've got MyDomain.com set up, and most of the content is being drawn in from other services. So there's blog posts from WordPress.com, videos from YouTube, a photo gallery from Flickr, etc. How would Google look at this scenario? Is MyDomain.com simply scraped content from the other (more authoritative) sources? Is the aggregated content perceived to "belong" to MyDomain.com or not? And most importantly, if you're aggregating a lot of content related to Topic X, will this content aggregation help MyDomain.com rank for Topic X? Looking forward to the community's thoughts. Thanks!

                On-Page Optimization | | GOODSIR
                0
              • thappe

                Word count requirement

                The on page optimization tool recommends a minimum word count of 50. Given the panda update, what word count would you recommend? Would that count vary if a photo appeared on the page, too?

                On-Page Optimization | | thappe
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy