- 4K views
- 17 comments
- 28 points
While hyphenated domain names are popular in some parts of the world, notably Germany, most domain investors shy away from them.
Only a small percentage of domain name sales have hyphens. But there are also far fewer names containing hyphens that are listed for sale. So what about the rate of hyphenated domain name sales?
About two years ago, I took a look at hyphens in domain names: Want A Hyphen With That Domain Name? In that analysis, I found that hyphenated domain names sold less frequently, and at lower prices. However, differences were perhaps shrinking with time.
Therefore, I thought it was time to take another look at hyphens in domain names, but just using NameBio-reported sales from the past two years. Also, I limited this analysis to sales $500 and up in order to reduce the impact of wholesale acquisitions.
Few .com Names Include Hyphens
I used NameBio to search for sales in the
With Advanced Search at Dofo I could find the number of
I found that only 3.1% of
Since a smaller percentage of hyphenated names sell, it is expected that the industry-wide apparent sell-through rate (STR) is lower for domain names including hyphens. I found a 0.21% STR for names with hyphens, versus 0.37% when no hyphen is part of the name.
These STR are lower than observed in 2019, due to the $500 price cutoff used this time. These are apparent sell-through rates, because many retail sales do not get reported in NameBio. Keep in mind that this is an industry-wide statistic, and does not apply directly to any particular portfolio.
What About .de Domain Names
As mentioned earlier, hyphenated names are more accepted in Germany. Therefore, one would expect the percentage of names that include hyphens to be higher in the
The results indicate that 28.8% of
Hyphenated .org Domain Names
I also looked at a few other extensions. Results for
As a result, the sell-through rate is higher for hyphenated
Interestingly, for $500+ sales, the sell-through rate in
Prices
I also looked at average prices. In all three cases, the average sales price is lower for hyphenated domain names. Note that these are average prices keeping only sales $500 and up. The overall NameBio average prices are substantially lower, due to the sales, mainly acquisitions, not much above $100.
Highest-Value Sales With Hyphens Last Two Years
Here are the highest-value
I also looked at the top hyphenated sales in
In the top sales of country-code extension names that include hyphens,
There is not a single sale in NameBio, from the past two years, of a new extension domain name with a hyphen selling for more than $500. Over the same period, there were 1213 new extension sales ($500+) that did not contain a hyphen, representing $5.2 million in sales volume.
What About Names That Should Have Hyphens?
If looking for a refresher on what words should be spelled with hyphens, this article by Brittney Ross on Hyphens published at the Grammarly Blog is excellent.
As she suggests, when in doubt the best thing is to check whether the word is shown with a hyphen in a major dictionary, such as Collins, Merriam-Webster and Oxford (subscription required, but the more basic Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries can be accessed free).
I wondered if words that should have a hyphen, might sell better as domain names with hyphens. That did not appear to be the case, at least for the names that I checked.
The abbreviation for electric bike seems, by most sources, to preferably be written with a hyphen, e-bike. If you use a quotation Google search,
DotDB shows 343 extensions registered for ebike, compared to 167 for the hyphenated e-bike.
Major Brands With Hyphens
There are a number of major brands with hyphens in their names, such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz and Merriam-Webster. They have websites on hyphenated domain names.
The current article concentrated on sales from the last two years. Check out the following article and discussion for the Highest Domain Sales of All Time Containing a Hyphen.
There is a NamePros thread to Showcase Domain Names With Hyphens, should you want to highlight hyphenated names from your portfolio.
Sincere thanks to NameBio and Dofo for the data used in this analysis.
Only a small percentage of domain name sales have hyphens. But there are also far fewer names containing hyphens that are listed for sale. So what about the rate of hyphenated domain name sales?
About two years ago, I took a look at hyphens in domain names: Want A Hyphen With That Domain Name? In that analysis, I found that hyphenated domain names sold less frequently, and at lower prices. However, differences were perhaps shrinking with time.
Therefore, I thought it was time to take another look at hyphens in domain names, but just using NameBio-reported sales from the past two years. Also, I limited this analysis to sales $500 and up in order to reduce the impact of wholesale acquisitions.
Few .com Names Include Hyphens
I used NameBio to search for sales in the
.com extension, with and without hyphens. I just used sales from the past two-year period. I included sales from all venues, but only sales with prices of $500 or more. That still includes some domain investor acquisitions, but far fewer than the $100 limit I used in the 2019 analysis. I excluded international character domain names using double hyphens as coding.With Advanced Search at Dofo I could find the number of
.com domain names currently for sale, with and without hyphens, again excluding international character names. Dofo covers all of the main domain name marketplaces, so is a pretty accurate view of domain names for sale, although names listed only on domain investor independent sites are missed.I found that only 3.1% of
.com names listed for sale include hyphens. Even fewer names with hyphens actually sell. Just 1.8% of $500+ sales over the two-year period are from names that contained hyphens. If one looks at sales dollar volume, instead of numbers, it shrinks further to only 1.1%.Since a smaller percentage of hyphenated names sell, it is expected that the industry-wide apparent sell-through rate (STR) is lower for domain names including hyphens. I found a 0.21% STR for names with hyphens, versus 0.37% when no hyphen is part of the name.
These STR are lower than observed in 2019, due to the $500 price cutoff used this time. These are apparent sell-through rates, because many retail sales do not get reported in NameBio. Keep in mind that this is an industry-wide statistic, and does not apply directly to any particular portfolio.
What About .de Domain Names
As mentioned earlier, hyphenated names are more accepted in Germany. Therefore, one would expect the percentage of names that include hyphens to be higher in the
.de country code extension. I did a similar analysis for that extension, with the results shown below.The results indicate that 28.8% of
.de names listed for sale include hyphens. That drops to 13.0% when we look at sales data from the last two years in the extension.Hyphenated .org Domain Names
I also looked at a few other extensions. Results for
.org are shown below. Hyphens are more popular in .org than in .com, with 4.0% of .org names listed for sale containing hyphens, and 6.6% of sales in this price range containing a hyphen. However, if instead of number I look at sales dollar volume, well under 1% are from sales of names including hyphens.As a result, the sell-through rate is higher for hyphenated
.org domain names than for names without hyphens, 1.34% versus 0.79%.Interestingly, for $500+ sales, the sell-through rate in
.org is substantially higher than in .com for the same parameters. Yes, there are way more sales in .com than in .org, over 61,400 versus 3954, but the rate of sales to listed names is higher in .orgPrices
I also looked at average prices. In all three cases, the average sales price is lower for hyphenated domain names. Note that these are average prices keeping only sales $500 and up. The overall NameBio average prices are substantially lower, due to the sales, mainly acquisitions, not much above $100.
Highest-Value Sales With Hyphens Last Two Years
Here are the highest-value
.com sales of names from the last two years for names including hyphens.TN-I.com$61,990gambling-law-us.com$57,000al-Islam.com$45,211blog-city.com$30,500E-ZRentACar.com$21,494gym-pact.com$20,000M-HK.com$17,999digital-identity.com$15,888United-States.com$15,136A-K.com$14,888
I also looked at the top hyphenated sales in
.org, with the highest ones being Lisbon-treaty.org for $20,050 and history-world.org for $12,150.In the top sales of country-code extension names that include hyphens,
.de dominated, taking 18 of the top 20 sales. There was one .se and one .eu in the top 20 list.There is not a single sale in NameBio, from the past two years, of a new extension domain name with a hyphen selling for more than $500. Over the same period, there were 1213 new extension sales ($500+) that did not contain a hyphen, representing $5.2 million in sales volume.
What About Names That Should Have Hyphens?
If looking for a refresher on what words should be spelled with hyphens, this article by Brittney Ross on Hyphens published at the Grammarly Blog is excellent.
As she suggests, when in doubt the best thing is to check whether the word is shown with a hyphen in a major dictionary, such as Collins, Merriam-Webster and Oxford (subscription required, but the more basic Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries can be accessed free).
I wondered if words that should have a hyphen, might sell better as domain names with hyphens. That did not appear to be the case, at least for the names that I checked.
The abbreviation for electric bike seems, by most sources, to preferably be written with a hyphen, e-bike. If you use a quotation Google search,
”ebike”, to show exact instead of intentional search, it yields about 55 million results, while ”e-bike” yields 92 million results. However, in terms of domain name sales, ebike has been part of 121 sales listed in NameBio, including the million dollar sale this summer by Buckley Media, while e-bike is just part of 8 sales, the highest at $13,900.DotDB shows 343 extensions registered for ebike, compared to 167 for the hyphenated e-bike.
Major Brands With Hyphens
There are a number of major brands with hyphens in their names, such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz and Merriam-Webster. They have websites on hyphenated domain names.
The current article concentrated on sales from the last two years. Check out the following article and discussion for the Highest Domain Sales of All Time Containing a Hyphen.
There is a NamePros thread to Showcase Domain Names With Hyphens, should you want to highlight hyphenated names from your portfolio.
Sincere thanks to NameBio and Dofo for the data used in this analysis.
Last edited:
