John Mueller from Google had conducted a chat on Mastodon, there was a question that was domain name related.
An #seo question from the X-Twitter world: In the domain name, is the use of dash ( – ) recommended or not?
Mueller gives a few points and ends the first reply with “Your domain name is never going to make or break your SEO.”
Mueller got a reply,
@johnmu Domain will never make or break your SEO……however it will help if you get one which will match the main searches. No dash better than dash but dash with the right keywords is better than no dash without good keyword.
Mueller was skeptical. “I don’t think either of those are the case. From a branding or marketing POV, maybe (eg, if you have the URL in an offline ad, it can be easier to remember).”
It’s a good back and forth read, with other questions coming in and you can read it all on this Mastodon thread.
A descriptive domain name keyword matches the search term. The number of keywords in ur article are relevant. Its called keyword density. Therefore if you have a domain name that matches the keyword you have more control.
Example: Mortgage.com You will use the word mortgage in your article. The more times the higher keyword density. Now you add the domain name mortgage.com. It increases your keyword density and is descriptive and easy for the searcher.
Anyone asking Google how to run their own website has already lost in my opinion regardless if its for SEO purposes or not. Google has only done one thing right, create a useful search engine…and somehow they managed to screw that up in the past couple of years. Everything else, YouTube, Maps, Android were created by other talented people and bought out by Google.
So thanks, but I’ll continue to leave them on my “pay-no-mind” list.