hyphen URL and google/yahoo trends Options

[optisite]

I have a main URL and a hyphenated URL.
ex: anyname.com and anyname-hugesubcategory.com

In my opinion, about a year and a half ago, the second site had to be seperated by hyphens not only for the needed keyword seperation/rankings from this at the time, but also to help ensure it would be listed by Yahoo (not operating just under the same business 'hat'.)

a) Question is, are Google serps and Yahoo now starting to eliminate URLS with single hyphens for modest keyword result searches as it seems, for double hyphenated names? (I ask because I'm finally able to submit to Yahoo, but would like to know if any clear pattern to exclude single hyphenated names is taking shape.)

Also, does anybody know if Yahoo requires that a second different physical address be listed on a second related site before they will list it?

[Still Waters]

a) Question is, are Google serps and Yahoo now starting to eliminate URLS with single hyphens for modest keyword result searches as it seems, for double hyphenated names?

In the longrun, It doesn't make sense that Google would eliminate URLs just due to hyphens. If a web page is highly optimized for a particular phrase, and if the relevancy of that web page's content matches that particular phrase, then Google's algorithm had better serve it to the end user.

After all, Google stays in business only as long as they serve up highly relevant searches for the end users. Otherwise, people will migrate to another search engine that does serve up highly relevant results.

When you see "Google behavior" that seems to penalize hyphenated domains or web pages, that's more likely a temporary phenomenon, as Google tweaks its algorithm, IMHO. After every Google update, I've seen webmasters go crazy if their pages go down. And all sorts of theories are spawned. But, the bottom line is Google is still a business that has to serve a quality product to its customers, in order to stay in business.

Remember, there are live humans behind the Google algorithm, and they're prone (by virtue of being human) to sometimes make mistakes -- and to sometimes tweak the algorithm one direction, with unintended consequences popping up in another direction.

My best advice is just stay focused on longtime proven optimization practices. Don't follow the latest theories. Patience is a winning quality for anyone optimizing for Google.

Also, does anybody know if Yahoo requires that a second different physical address be listed on a second related site before they will list it?

Sorry, I don't know much at all about Yahoo.

[compar]

Question is, are Google serps and Yahoo now starting to eliminate URLS with single hyphens for modest keyword result searches as it seems, for double hyphenated names?

Where did you hear or get any evidence to support that statement? I think it is 100% incorrect. Immediately after Nov 16 there were many sites ranking #1 in Google for very competitive keywords that had two or more hypens in the domain names.

I just did a search on 'online pharmacy'. That is a very competitive term and one that suffered badly from the Florida update. Two of the top ten sites in this search have domain names which include two hypens.

There is another active thread on this subject. You might want to look at http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.p...der=asc&start=0

[optisite]

My best advice is just stay focused on longtime proven optimization practices

I couldn't agree with you more.

[As an example of their recent updates, I've noticed some serps including basically the same URL having many subdomains filling up many of the positions for some of my phrases.]An alternaive to serps has to be found for these times. My site as are many are shut out by this practice.

[compar]

My best advice is just stay focused on longtime proven optimization practices.

I have problems with that type of advice today. First there is no universal or standard set of "longtime proven optimization practices". So what exactly would someone stay focused on?

Ok links and content are still important, but the specific details of what works with each is really up for grabs.

While we certainly do not know exactly what Google did on Nov 16 and since, it is clear that sites that followed too slavishly some of the most common SEO forumlas -- repetition of exact keyword phrases and unreasonably high keyword density -- were demoted or drop from the rankings.

So IMHO this type of undefined generalized advice is non specific and just maybe wrong.

[Mike521]

Anyone knoe if google, or any other engines, pick keywords out of a non-hyphenated domain?

Just wondering cause I did a search the other day for some rock climbing info, and the # 1 site was rockclimbing.com. That was to be expected, obviously they're a big site and have a lot of rock climbing info, just wondering if google saw the keywords in their domain name as well.

[Grumpus]

Holy Smokes - Bob and I agree on something!

Yup. In my experience, the word "focus" is almost always wrong when it comes to SEO in today's environment. There are simply too many "conditionals" in use today. Technique A is important - but only if Techniques B and C are employed. Technique D doesn't work for Site 1 but does for Site 2 because A,B, and C are on site 2, but not on 1.

And its no longer just a matter of is or isn't a certain technique being used, but there is also a quantative value assigned to it as well.

Mike - Yes - Google seems to be starting to find words within strings - both on-page and in URLs. I suspect that, as I said above, certain other criteria needs to be met before this has any value, though. What's the criteria? I have no idea.

G.

[Ron Carnell]

Don't be so surprised, G. Bob and I have agreed on a few things in the past.

But, uh, not this time. At least not completely.

I had a poster in my forums this morning resort to the old "everyone thought the Earth was flat" cliché to demonstrate that truth is a moving target. My response was that we probably shouldn't confuse truth, which very rarely changes, with our perception of truth. Maybe Grumpus' description of the complexity of A, B, C and D is a newly changed truth, but I rather suspect it's just a perception (common to many in these post-Florida times).

Over the last summer, I saw numerous posts in numerous forums that routinely delineated the necessary seven or eight steps to achieving good rankings. Do this, do that three times, then do this twice. Bada bing. It was first year algebra and we all had it wired.

With the purchase of Applied Semantics, it is at least possible that Google went directly from first year algebra to the calculus. But I doubt it. I rather strongly suspect we've gone from first year to second year algebra, maybe trig at the most. The biggest difference is we just don't have it wired. Yet.

In first year algebra we are taught that subtracting or adding like quantities from both sides of an equation will never alter the relationships defined in the equation. That's a fundamental Truth that doesn't change, even when we move into trig or calculus. Similarly, the foundations of good SEO that existed this past summer -- if they were True and not just quirks of the algorithm -- must necessarily still be true. The title tag is important not just because Google always said it was, but because the title of the page REALLY does tell us what the page is about. The fundamentals haven't changed, because the fundamentals can't change without destroying function (relevancy).

In short, I think there are still quite a few things upon which we can still focus. The trick (which also hasn't changed) is to stop following recipes and start recognizing WHY an accepted technique worked.

[Grumpus]

True, true. Most all of the math and semantics and/or stemming and all of the new things we're seeing are in their infant stages. We know where Google wants to go and can extrapolate an possible route toward those goals by looking at the technologies they are employing to get there. Fact is, they are still a long way off from where they want to be.

The "Earth Is Flat" dealio is a bit different than what we are talking about here. The "truth" has always been that Earth is (mostly) spherical. That discovery, as you say, didn't change the truth but changed our perception of it. In this case, the "truth" is the constant.

"The fastest anyone has ever gone in a land vehicle is 633.468 mile per hour." This statement was true between the years of 1983 and 1997. In 1997, some guy name Andy Green from the UK got up to 763.055 miles per hour. (The source for these numbers only goes up to 2001, so this may no longer be the case, I'm not certain). The point is, that in this case, the "control" (Fastest anyone has gone in a land vehicle) is the constant and the truth is a variable.

Certain truths are constants, others are variables. Anyone who's ever been married knows that the truth can also be quantative. "I love you" may be the truth - but some days are better than others. And there can even come the day when it's no longer true at all.

G.

[compar]

The trick (which also hasn't changed) is to stop following recipes and start recognizing WHY an accepted technique worked.

Then Ron, I would say we do agree in toto. The only problem we have is semantics.

[Still Waters]

Hmmm. <strokes chin thoughtfully> I did suggest focusing on "longtime proven optimization practices" -- not longtime proven optimization formulae.

What are those practices? They are, not surprisingly, those practices that are consistent with the fundamental truth behind Google's algorithm.

What is that fundamental truth? IMHO, this is it, in a nutshell:

... Google stays in business only as long as they serve up highly relevant searches for the end users.

How do you know if a web page is relevant? Keywords in title, keywords in content, keywords in inbound and outbound links, keywords in... well, you get the idea. I wonder if I can go so far as to say it's a tautology that "relevant web pages" are served up as "relevant web pages."

Google's behavior may seem "out of whack" at any single point in time. But, its general trajectory is guided by its fundamental truth. That's why patience is a webmaster's best friend.

[Ron Carnell]

That's why patience is a webmaster's best friend.

The only problem with that philosophy is that it will always be highly subjective. I tell my family all the time that I'm patient.

They insist I'm procrastinating.

[compar]

How do you know if a web page is relevant? Keywords in title, keywords in content, keywords in inbound and outbound links, keywords in... well, you get the idea.

Yes indeed. That sounds like the "longtime proven optimization formulae" to me.

If you still think its about keywords, keywords, and more keywords you are wrong. It's about relevance and topics and information. Yes this should include the terms that people are searching on, but it should be naturally written and the keywords distributed naturally within the text, not slavishly maintained and duplicated in some exact form.

[Grumpus]

Yes yes, Bob. Every moment that passes brings the "keywords" aspect of SEO further from "science" and closer to the realm of "art".

And from the other topic, a formula is a tactic, not a principle. (I think you get that based on your last response here, so I'm stating it for everyone else who might not).

G.

[Ron Carnell]

Ironically, one of the first programs I ever wrote, in MS Basic on a C64, was a version of Eliza. One of the first programs I ever sold, also on the C64 but in 6502 assembly, was a database for processing syllogisms. Plug in a thousand statements, and if two of them were "All humans are mortal" and "Socrates is a human," the program would spit out "Socrates is mortal" in the blink of a digital eye (primitive stemming and all). The program was called Smart Alec, if anyone has an old copy of Commodore Gazette laying around.

Semantic analysis has come a long way since those days in the early 1980's, and I wouldn't even pretend to be up to speed on any of it. But you know what? I'm willing to bet that twenty years later it's still more science than art. The rules have changed, perhaps, but never doubt there are still rules that apply.

p.s. This is only slightly off-topic, or perhaps an expansion of the topic, but I am really surprised no one has offered any speculation on this little Google toy. I was reminded of it moments ago when I searched on "elisa program" and Google very correctly asked me if I meant "eliza program." That puppy must be running off so many lists by now that the implications are truly staggering.

[Grumpus]

ELIZA! I remember her from my Trash-80 Model III days. Fascinating little program. We had a machine that we left running her for about two weeks (if I remember right, you couldn't save the database from session to session? Or something like that, I forget...). Everyone put their own little fingerprint in there with her - many trying to mess her up. For that day and age, it was a pretty amazing program.

I'd forgotten about the Google Sets stuff, too. And that's been up there for at least a year and a half, I think. Definitely longer than I've been here at Cre8asite... Definitely should be something folks have a look at if they want to understand what we're talking about.

G.

[Still Waters]

Not sure if I'm being misunderstood or I'm misunderstanding you guys.

Using keywords is not a formula. If I had said use 1 kw in title, 3 kw inbound links, at least 1kw outbound link, and so on... then that's a formula. I'm simply stating that we need keywords in our web pages to make them "relevant" for those keywords.

An artist uses blue paint and yellow paint and green paint in subjectively sufficient proportions to communicate the message in a way that makes the artwork relevant to the patron. There's no forumula there. A webmaster's art is similar.

Obviously there are plenty more factors besides keywords, which will determine how far up you rank. Or if you'll get banned from Google, altogether, despite the "relevancy" of your web page. There's common sense in following Google's "do's and don't's".

All in all, IMHO, the principle still stands that Google must serve up relevant web pages to stay in business.

[compar]

All in all, IMHO, the principle still stands that Google must serve up relevant web pages to stay in business.

Nobody is going to dispute that. The question is how are they determining relevance today.

We seem to have a lot of semantical nit picking and misunderstandings in this thread. But my concern is that many very well respected SEO gurus advocated a type of keyword phrase practice, principles, tactics, strategy, or formulation that I think is no longer applicable.

So whenever anyone uses "universal SEO practice or principles" as a recommendation of what people should be doing today I become concerned that some people reading that will understand what was to some degree a formaula like, or rules driven, approach.

Very briefly the rules I'm talking about included:

Keep your keyword phrases intact and exact.
(Today I think the phrases can be broken up and the words distributed naturally within the content)

If your keyword is singular, a plural version is not the same and you have to make up your mind which you are going to optimize for.
(This was never correct, because pre Florida stemming was operating and a plural would be stemmed to a singular and vis-a-versa.)

You must use your Keyword phrase(s) in your title as close to the beginning as possible and with the words in exact order and juxtapostion.
(I don't think this is the case today. In fact I have seen sites that survived Florida by simply having an additional word or adjective in front of the very competitive keyword phrase. Immediately after Nov 16 the #1 site for the keyword phrase 'online pharmacy' started their title with 'Cheap online pharmacy' where as over 95% of all the sites whose titles started with 'online pharmacy' had been demoted.)

There were fairly exact keyword density goals advocated.
(Today I think you are better off with lower keyword densities and as I said above the keyword phrases do not have to be used intact, but can be broken up for more natural writing.)

So I continue to ask the question everytime someone offers the old chestnut about just follow SEO principles, what specific set of principles are you talking about? Because some highly promoted and advocated sets of principles -- or whatever -- were too agressive and are wrong in today's situation.

[Grumpus]

Your confusing specific advice (much of which comes from one person and will often be contradicted by another) on technique with the basic principles.

Keep your keyword phrases intact and exact.

That's some advice. I, like you, have the notion that it's important to have spread in there. I do say though, that you should have one exact match if possible. But this is specific advice on utilizing a principle.

The Principle: Keyword Phrases are important.

If your keyword is singular, a plural version is not the same and you have to make up your mind which you are going to optimize for.

I believe it's possible to optimize for both the singular and the plural, regardless of whether the engine is stemming or not.

The Principle: It is important to make decisions on how you are going to incorporate variations of keywords into your copy.

You must use your Keyword phrase(s) in your title as close to the beginning as possible and with the words in exact order and juxtapostion.

I'm not certain I've ever even heard this one, but I know which principle it comes from.

The Principle: Keyword location and order on your page will have an effect on how it ranks.

There were fairly exact keyword density goals advocated.

Yep. And those density (and spread) values have changed.

The Principle: Keyword density (and spread) has an effect on how your page will rank.

just follow SEO principles, what specific set of principles are you talking about

What people are saying when they suggest that you follow the old principles is that there are no real new principles to learn, nor are there any that are no longer important. True, how you apply those principles may change - and change considerably, but the priniple itself has stayed the same.

In other words, theres nothing new like saying, "The color value in your BGCOLOR tag will have an effect on your ranking".

They are, in effect, saying, "You don't need to learn any new principles, you may need to alter your technique in the application of those principles." And no SEO guru in their right mind is going to give you a specific answer as to how to adjust your application of the principles - having their own way of making best use of the principles is what pays their salaries.

Sometimes, I think that the reason so many SEO people offer free advice to lay a foundation of understanding in the field is just so that you, as the person trying to learn it will realize "Wow, this is complex stuff! Screw this, I'm forkin' over the $500 and going golfing." But it's there for the taking if you really want to learn. You're still going to have to (through observation of others' work, or by experimenting with your own) learn how to come up with your own applications for the principles.

(And if you look - most of the specific mentions of an application of a principle are posed by someone somewhere in the learning curve. And maybe an SEO guru will confirm or deny the validity of that application, but you'll rarely, if ever see it originating from the guru's mouth.)

G.

[compar]

What people are saying when they suggest that you follow the old principles is that there are no real new principles to learn,

How do you know that? That maybe what you are saying, but I'm sure that it is not what other people are saying.

Our unamed advocate is probably one of the best known, best published advocates on the subject. Someone on this forum gave me her name just the other day as an example of outstanding branding success. So what she taught and adovated as the method of exploiting the principles, you so correctly espouse, is understood, or misunderstood, by many as SEO principles or practice. Not everyone makes your fine semantical distinction between the two.

In fact I think your own understanding of SEO principles has blinded you to what other understand or mean by that phrase. I think if you go back and re read all the advice to use these universal principles and them look at the examples that some people give you will start to see that they mean the practices that have been so widely preached and advocated.

I don't understand why you and I are arguing Grumpus. We both advocate the same style of SEO practices. You should be supporting me in trying to assure that there is no misunderstanding. We are both on the same side.