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In my 10+ years of domaining I have often been mystified by the 'perceived wisdoms' within the domaining community, some had partial truths behind them whilst others obviously were almost totally without foundation and relied solely on repeating it often enough (usually by one or more of the big names in the domaining community) that they became ingrained in domaining lore in much the same way as an an urban myth develops. Today I am going to take on one of these perceived wisdoms, the lack of value of any domain containing a dash or hyphen.
It is evident that all the top domain names are registered in the .com suffix whether they be 2 character domains right through to domains made up of two, three, or even four words. Indeed the top domains are registered in almost all TLD's and ccTLD's. Most of these domains are perceived to have a value greater than the annual registration fee of the domain, yet as soon as a dash (hyphen) is introduced to a domain name it is then considered by many domainers to become almost worthless if not worthless, and this to a great extent is due to someone who I admire as generally talking a great deal of sense about domains, Rick Schwartz.
I have read numerous blogs and posts by Rick Schwartz over the years and although I am not sure it was he who first came up with the phrase 'radio test' the one thing for sure is that his usage of it has made it almost domaining lore when valuing a domain name - and this of course applies to dashed domain names. (I should say here that I use the term 'dash' or 'dashed' in preference to 'hyphen' or 'hyphened' much the same way that people have adapted to using the term 'dot' instead of 'full stop'). The 'radio test' is how people who might HEAR the domain on radio or aurally through some other means understand the address name. The inclusion of a 'dash' in a domain has for years been seen as failing the so-called 'radio test'.
Now there are several things to point out in favour of dashed domains that are generally ignored by many domainers, but due to lack of space per post (and the fact any readers of this might not want to read more than the minimum) I shall just list them.
It is evident that all the top domain names are registered in the .com suffix whether they be 2 character domains right through to domains made up of two, three, or even four words. Indeed the top domains are registered in almost all TLD's and ccTLD's. Most of these domains are perceived to have a value greater than the annual registration fee of the domain, yet as soon as a dash (hyphen) is introduced to a domain name it is then considered by many domainers to become almost worthless if not worthless, and this to a great extent is due to someone who I admire as generally talking a great deal of sense about domains, Rick Schwartz.
I have read numerous blogs and posts by Rick Schwartz over the years and although I am not sure it was he who first came up with the phrase 'radio test' the one thing for sure is that his usage of it has made it almost domaining lore when valuing a domain name - and this of course applies to dashed domain names. (I should say here that I use the term 'dash' or 'dashed' in preference to 'hyphen' or 'hyphened' much the same way that people have adapted to using the term 'dot' instead of 'full stop'). The 'radio test' is how people who might HEAR the domain on radio or aurally through some other means understand the address name. The inclusion of a 'dash' in a domain has for years been seen as failing the so-called 'radio test'.
Now there are several things to point out in favour of dashed domains that are generally ignored by many domainers, but due to lack of space per post (and the fact any readers of this might not want to read more than the minimum) I shall just list them.
- Most people are introduced to a website either through search engines or through clicking links in articles or emails.
- Most businesses are small to medium businesses who cannot afford the top dollar premium domains that mainly large conglomerates buy but still want a descriptive domain/s for their business, this applies to businesses throughout the world including a growing number in the USA who are utilising dashed domains.
- Predictive addressing in the address bar means that when a user has visited a site the predictive address is supplied in the address bar, and this includes the 'dash' in the address (I vistit the Cel-Robox site and as soon as I start typing the address the predictive address comes up with Cel-robox.com).
- Owners of non-dashed domains should for defensive reasons alone acquire the dashed version, whilst competitors might want the dashed version to link through to their own site or launch a competing site (here I refer to non-TM domain names).
- In many instances a dashed .com domain name should (IMO) be worth at least the value of the undashed .net domain name.
- Multiple uses of single dashes such as with L-L-L.com or N-N-N.com are easily readable and memorable visually, so again these are valuable domains (perhaps seen by the current uptrend in registrations and snaps occuring). Again these will not be as valuable as a LLL.com or NNN.com but should I think be at least as valuable as the corresponding LLL.net or NNN.net.
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