Those internet marketers don’t know diddly about running a real business. They only know how to scam people online, so they don’t give a rip about average domain name issues. And what they miss is absolutely critical!

For a real business, you need a name that is speakable. If you are going to tell people the name of your website, either over the phone, in person, or on the radio, you need a name that they can hear, and remember.

That means no dashes.

A fairly sizable ISP in our area has a URL with a dash. So not only do their telephone personnel complain about people not getting it over the phone, but every single client of theirs with an email address through them has the dash problem – they know it is twice as hard to convey that email address over the phone or other times when they have to share it verbally.

Dashes are dashed awkward to say and have them be comprehensible. Not only that, but search engines really don’t care whether dashes are there or not! They are capable of recognizing words even with no dashes. That isn’t theory, no matter what you hear elsewhere, we’ve proven it.

A domain name that has a keyword or two in it is a plus – not enough of a plus to go through convoluted efforts to get it, but worth getting if you can create a graceful one that contains a keyword. But more than that, make it speakable, and memorable.

That will make more of a difference to your business success than dashed keywords ever could.

The general concensus though, is that filenames are an easy factor which has a minute influence on page indexing.

They are also a frequent target for abuse, on the part of people who assume they mean more than they do! The other general agreement about them is that filename keyword stuffing is harmful to a site, causing search engines to be more likely to discredit the site and content.

The rules are simple – name it something logical, that has to do with the content of the page. Since no two filenames can be the same, you’ll generally wind up with some good variety through a site, and that is good.

If you have focused on logical naming first, then the rest of the rules are not going to be as needed. I’ll state them anyway, lest anyone misunderstand what “logical” means.

1. Keep it short. Two or three words is ideal. More than 4 is spam unless it is auto-generated (blog software and CMS software auto generates filenames.
2. Use Keywords naturally – no keyword stuffing.
3. Make the name human understandable as far as possible. It is the considerate thing to do.
4. Use hyphens to separate  words. I can’t verify it, but it is supposed to matter to Google.

When you are building a site in a Content Management System or Blog system, you won’t have as much control over the filename. The degree of control you do have depends on the particular system. Most have some kind of way to at least influence the filenames.

The rules for image files are the same – keep them short and logical, and do not think they are a way to manipulate search engines. If your images have nothing but keywords for filenames, they may be discounted. Name them with a name that reminds you of what the image is about, and the keywords typically come naturally if your site is well focused topically.

The bottom line with filenames is that they are something that you do because it is easy. It is no harder to give a page a good name as it is to give it a bad one. Even if the influence is very minute, you might as well name them with something that contains a keyword when it is logical and natural to do so. By the same token, there is no point in fussing over them or stuffing them with keywords – the potential for good is very small, while the potential for discrediting your site is actually fairly high.