Google Dash Queries

[incrediblehelp]

I haven't looked to optimize for dashed queries in long time. I was looking over some keywords for a client and noticed that Google treats dashed keywords differently than ones without. For example "on-hold messages":

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...-hold+messages

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...es&btnG=Search

Why would they do this? Doesn't that seem ridiculous?

[brian.mark]

From our Google mini, I have found that a dash, be it on a page or as part of a two-word phrase, is ignored the first time. Essentially, the search is finding onhold instead of on hold. There are some minor differences in the way that it is treated, but many of the same ones show up that way.

Brian.

[incrediblehelp]

Yes I see most of the time the same web pages will show up in both sets of results, but in different orders. I just find it odd that they are doing this. I would think that "on-hold" is the same as "on hold", guess not. Like I said, I havent looked at dashed queries in sometime.