It used to be that google preferred the hyphen (-) to the underscore (_) when it came to page names.

So www.yourdomain.com/page-name-here.html was seen more favourably than www.yourdomain.com/page_name_here.html when it came to listings and positioning.

That’s all changed, and now it makes no difference which one you use – Google treats them both the same.

(We’d recommend sticking to one or the other though, rather than mixing them, for the sake of clarity)

Similarly, stop worrying about where your site is hosted.

Some say that it matters, but in my experience it really doesn’t if you’re doing everything else correctly.

OK, if your site isn’t as well optimised as one that’s hosted in the UK, and you’re hosted in the US, you might not get as good results.

But, if your site is well optimised, you’ve done everything right, you’re adding regular new content and getting links in to the site from reputable places, whether you’re hosted in the Uk, US or Outer Mongolia shouldn’t make a difference.

Another domain question that pops up with alarming regularity is the ‘location’ question.

Should you have a .com or a .co.uk domain if you’re trying to target the UK market?

Well the simple answer is that, all things being equal, it doesn’t really seem to matter, despite what you may hear or read!

If you have a .com and your site is optimised correctly, you will still achieve good listings in google.co.uk

If you have a .co.uk and your site isn’t optimised at all, the chances are you won’t have any listings in google.co.uk.