Pages with hyphens in file names getting filtered ???

I have a site with two hypens in the domain name. This site has several dozen internal pages in the root directory that are my prime traffic getters. Seven of those pages have one hyphen in the file name. For the past two years all 40 of these pages have held nice rankings in google for their primary keyword and several secondary keywords.

About two weeks ago six of these pages stopped showing in google for their primary keyword (they still show for the secondary keywords). All six of the pages that stopped showing are ones with hypens in the file name. I think that the odds of this happening by chance are very low and would bet that google is now starting to take a close look at URLs with lots of hyphens.

Is anyone else seeing this?

If they are intentionally punishing hyphens then they are limiting the distribution of their blogger posts since with their recent upgrade they create filepaths with many hyphens in them.

I do not think they would want to damage one of their own product lines that way.

They must have some value for hyphens in that product, but it seems like more than coincidence to me that six of the seven three-hyphen URLs on my site are the ones to get filtered.

.... Are you down there in Happy Valley awall?

I can't see Google ( or any other SE ) penalising pages simply because of the way a pages file name is written.

As "spam" methods go then hyphens in file names must be one of the softest there is - and *if* Google is now frowning on them then there is a heck of a lot of pages out there that are at risk, ( and where would it leave underscores ? ).

As I understand it - then keywords in a pages file name only have a minimal effect on that pages ranking anyway so why would Google focus so harshly on them ?

If i were G, and wanted to stuff around with the algo to stop hyphens being any kind of advantage, id simply tweak it to not take filenames into account at all.

If that has happened, I strongly doubt that your pages would drop so far for your main keywords Egol, as I dont believe filenames account for much at all.

Sure, on a non competitive term, they can be an advantage, but when it comes to a popular key phrase, it really wouldnt make that much of a difference.

I haven't noticed pages using hypens being penalised on any of our sites at all.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...G=Google+Search

Still in the Top 10 for most of the pages I have named like that.

I am in State College PA

I am about two hours drive north of you. I taught geology for PSU for seven years then ten years in the State System. That was my second career... working on #3 now.

I also have seen no problem with hyphenated urls...

I do have a LOT of illogical changes in my serps and listed pages in google.

I have seen a huge increase in spider activity on big sites, going on for the whole of the last 6 weeks.

Googlebot has hit one of my domains more than 10x the number of pages on the site and they still don't have the bloody things listed correctly!!!

Whatever is happening I'm sure it's either big changes or big f##k-ups on their part...

I think the nature of your problem may just be coincidence although I do watch your posts and have a lot of respect for your ability so I'm fully expecting to be proved wrong eventually - lol

lol... thanks Clicky...

I have several other sites with the same hyphen structure in the file names and they have no problems, however, this site goes after the most competetive terms.

When I see this kind of thing, I simply post some data and see what people have to say about it. After that, it becomes fairly easy to decide if it is coincidence or something a little stronger. Thanks for sharing your info with us.

Damn... wish I'd thought of that... I just sit here and worry and watch to see if somebody else posts a similar problem - which they never do...

...no wonder I can't sleep - lol

If you see something fishy or something that seems to work, post it here... a lot of people usually reply and tell you if that is happening on one of their sites.

I think that this is one of the best ways to figure out what is working "today".

Hi Egol;

I think G reduced the importance of domain names. Or maybe reduced domain name importance if domain name contains more than 1-2 hypen. But i am not sure... All i know is that i dont see lots of hypen in SERPs as i see before.

Please look at this SERP:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ng+&btnG=Search