Phrases for keyword, Hyphen or no?

[No4h]

Hi Guys, Just wondering if you had any idea if having the hyphen between a keyword phrase in a filename could change how a page is ranked? This company that overtook #1 in all of our markets (which are all 2 word phrases) doesn't have a hyphen, and I'm thinking that might be what we need to do.

Just for the sake of this thread, we'll say the phrase is "Forum Technology".

• #1 - http://www.competitor1.com/forumtechnology.php
• #2 - http://www.competitor1.com
• #3 - http://www.competitor2.com/forum-technology.html
• #4 - http://www.competitor2.com
• #5 - http://www.mywebsite.com/forum-technnology
• #6 - http://www.competitor3.com/forum-technology.php

I know they have a lot more pages indexed, and they have more back-links but we were sitting comfortably at top for over 6 of these phrases.... and lost it within the span of a week.

Any clues? :o

[BlackNinjaX]

Hmmm, that's a good question but you shouldn't have a hyphen when having a domain because it will be harder to rank for but as for as those extension I'm not sure just use /%postname%/

[nYXem]

Presence of hyphen makes it user friendly but absence of hyphen makes it bot friendly.