Is it Ecommerce or E-commerce? Let’s Find Out

Is it ecommerce or e-commerce? Short answer is: both.

On the face of it, this looks like an argument over semantics. After all, nearly every person reading either spelling will immediately understand both mean the same thing — electronic commerce.

Things are not always that simple though especially in the context of digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).

In a world of cutthroat competition for eyeballs, spelling usually matters. What we will establish is whether it does in the case of ecommerce and e-commerce.

Historical Evolution of the Term

Electronic commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods and services via computer networks, telecommunication networks and the Internet overall. It does not only cover the transaction but also all the other activity around building and maintaining business relationships as a whole.

The history of electronic commerce dates back to the late 1940s where it was initially the exchange of business documents and a system of placing orders via telex. The term got into early use in the 1960s and 1970s.

English inventor Michael Aldrich is considered the father of modern electronic commerce. In 1979, he created a shopping system that facilitated the processing of transactions between businesses and consumers using a computer network. It was not until five years later that the term electronic commerce was first legally defined via California’s Electronic Commerce Act of 1984.

The first end-to-end electronic commerce transaction is thought to have occurred in August 1994.

Google Books Ngram Viewer indicates use of the term really started to catch on from around 1995. Unsurprisingly, this was around the same time the Internet was in its early phase of mass adoption. Electronic commerce in its various shortened formats has been a fixture of online and offline literature ever since.

SEO Implications of Spelling Variations

Ngram Viewer shows the use of e-commerce is far more widespread than ecommerce. This gap is evident when you run a search query for either spelling. E-commerce yields 3.5 billion results while ecommerce results in 1.47 billion results.

However, things take a different turn when you compare the two spellings on Google Trends which is a reflection of relative search interest. It shows that after several months of switching positions back and forth, ecommerce decisively overtook e-commerce in October 2005 with the gap growing steadily since.

There is a rational explanation for this difference between Ngram Viewer and Google Trends.

E-commerce is the grammatical correct spelling. It is the default used by all major dictionaries including Oxford, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster and Collins. Ecommerce is also the preferred spelling by leading writing style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Style Guide. Ngram Viewer therefore represents the more academic use of the word.

That said, it is noteworthy that the gap between the two spellings peaked in 2002 when e-commerce occurred about 900% more often than ecommerce.

As at 2019, that gap in frequency of usage had shrunk to 600%. Perhaps a pointer to the fact that an increasingly significant proportion of industry players, researchers, leading commentators and ordinary Internet users was leaning toward ecommerce. This evolving shift is in line with Google Trends’ findings.

As far as SEO goes, Google and other leading search engines have transitioned away from a fixation on spelling and more toward discerning search intent and search context.

So chances are, using either term will yield the same search results in much the same way Google will display the correct set of results when a query has a minor spelling error.

Industry Standards and Preferences

E-commerce may be the most widely used spelling in books and academic literature. However, as Google Trends shows, there is a distinction between the more academic/journalistic references to electronic commerce and the more commercial and casual uses.

You can see this split in spelling preference among high authority websites by looking at just the first 10 results (which are more or less the same URLs for both e-commerce and ecommerce queries).

For example, Techtarget, Investopedia, Wikipedia, Britannica, Forbes, Toppr and The-Future-of-Commerce use e-commerce. On the other hand, industry giant Amazon as well as Bigcommerce and Shopify (some of the top ecommerce platforms) prefer ecommerce.

This distinction is not necessarily black-and-white. A website may have both spellings appear on different pages. Even industry pros like Neil Patel (of NeilPatel.com), Andrew Youderian (of eCommerceFuel.com) and Karl Lillrud (of KarlLillrud.com) use the two spellings interchangeably on their own websites.

Still, it is interesting that actual electronic commerce industry websites seem to favor ecommerce. And as organizations that probably keep tabs on ecommerce user activity, they could be onto something.

Practical Considerations in Content Creation

Using the right spelling is important. And depending on context, that could mean going with e-commerce or ecommerce.

If your website is addressing an academic or journalistic audience, the hyphenated spelling may be the better option.

But if the content is mainly for SEO, electronic commerce industry experts and other everyday non-technical readers, ecommerce could be the better choice. It’s the term most used for in search queries.

You get all the SEO gains of e-commerce while sticking to the spelling that the majority of readers will recognize and understand. The everyday person does not feel any obligation to conform to a dictionary or industry convention. They may also be in a hurry and see no need to include the hyphen.

Future Trends and Predictions

As the trends in the academic usage of the two spellings shows over the last two decades, there is every possibility that the frequency of academic use will gradually converge.

Ecommerce could even pull ahead in much the same way email surpassed e-mail as the more widely used contraction for electronic mail. That’s just like how esports has been normalized over e-sports and ebook over e-book.

This transition has already happened on the search query front. Ecommerce is easier to read and write. Just as it happened for email, esports and ebook, popular use could eventually push ecommerce to be the default dictionary definition.

FAQ

Is there a difference in SEO performance between “ecommerce” and “e-commerce”?

No. Search algorithms have in recent years gradually moved away from focusing on a search query’s spelling and grammatical accuracy, and toward understanding the user’s context and intent. So either spelling will yield the same performance.

How do major search engines treat the different spellings of ecommerce?

They no longer treat the two spellings differently. Whether a website or user refers to e-commerce or ecommerce, major search engines understand they are talking about electronic commerce.

What spelling do leading ecommerce platforms use and why?

Ecommerce. This is likely due to the fact that the majority of average Internet users prefer to use this spelling on search queries.

Should I change the spelling of ecommerce on my website for better SEO?

That is not necessary now and perhaps not even in future. Even if ecommerce becomes the dominant dictionary spelling, search engines will likely stick to prioritizing search intent over grammatical correctness.

How does the choice of spelling impact user engagement and readability?

Spelling can determine engagement and readability depending on the nature of the audience. Academic and journalistic audiences see e-commerce as more professional while everyone else will probably be most comfortable with ecommerce.

Conclusion

Academics and journalists use e-commerce. Internet commerce businesses prefer ecommerce. In the context of SEO though, this might not matter much. Search algorithms are likely to continue their drive to center search intent and search context.

The implication from the search users’ perspective, both spellings will yield near identical search results.

What’s important though is that irrespective of the spelling chosen, it’s best to keep it consistent across all content. This improves readability and coherence.

Otherwise, readers can start to question their understanding of the meaning of the word in your website’s context if they notice both spellings occur at various points on the same web page or website.