Punctuation and On-page SEO scores

#234204
  • Resolved Rick H
    Rank Math free

    First of all, love the product. I am currently using the free version, but plan to upgrade in the near future. My question is about on-page SEO calculations and how punctuation impacts the score. I have read that punctuation does not negatively impact keyword phrases, i.e., “Search engines don’t pay attention to standard punctuation marks or line breaks. They read right through full stops, semi-colons, hyphens, commas without hesitation”. However, when I insert a hyphen within my keyword phrase, my on-page score is negatively impacted.

    For example pre workout side effects versus pre-workout side effects. If I use the first instance of this phrase in the title, and the later example within the body, I do not get credit for the instance of use until I remove the hyphen.

    This issue is not limited to this specific example. I run into it all the time. Any thoughts?

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  • Hello,

    Thanks for contacting us. Sorry for the delay and any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

    Rank Math checks your content for the exact same focus keyword that you have set. If you have a hyphen in your focus keyword then it should also have a hyphen in your content for Rank Math to recognize it.

    And Google also can show different results for a search with a hyphen in the keyword and without hyphen: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-hyphens-in-search-queries-23965.html

    Hope this helps. Let us know if you need any further assistance.

    Hello,

    Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.

    If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.

    Thank you.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The ticket ‘Punctuation and On-page SEO scores’ is closed to new replies.