Are dashes ever OK?

[Source]

Suppose you discover what you feel is a GREAT name, but it has dashes (one or more). You try some quantitative testing on Google, Ovt, and Sedo, but all report back the name w/o the dashes.

Would you still reg it?

I know a lot depends on the name, extension, and appropriateness to the subject matter.

Please weigh in on this.

 

[dongan]

If the words separated by - are rich keywords, then certainly, i will go for it.

 

[Source]

If the words separated by - are rich keywords, then certainly, i will go for it.

I tend to agree from an SEO perspective.

What about initials or letters?

I also like these:

F-A-Q
I-Q
S-E-X

Not these:

M-A-G-A-Z-I-N-E-S
B-O-O-K-S-T-O-R-E
C-Y-B-E-R-S-E-X

 

[yes]

i bought free-samples-on.us intending to develop it but never got around to it thus far

 

[Australia]

i have fastest-car.com, gets good traffic

 

[tetrapak]

I have dubai-towers which gets good traffic as well. I also have dubai-golf-club.com and buy-dubai-property.com

 

[FanCube]

Dashes are ok. If KeywordKeyword.com is taken do I once in a while register Keyword-Keyword.com instead of KeywordKeyword.net or simply get both. Don't forget the content. Great content is more important than the domain.

 

[Genialnames]

F-A-Q
I-Q
S-E-X

Not these:

M-A-G-A-Z-I-N-E-S
B-O-O-K-S-T-O-R-E
C-Y-B-E-R-S-E-X

according with what Dongan say, that make sense, then a search engine would read these like separated letters.... I can't see how they could work for traffic...

 

[wasistdas]

The funny thing is that my S-C-O-T-L-A-N-D.com has some natural traffic Not very crowded, but some.

 

[Mark]

I think from an SEO Point of View , They can work ..... I do not believe
"L-O-N-G-D-O-M-A-I-N.com" will get the type "Natural" Traffic people are thinking about though.

And from a marketing and branding POV - Hyphens are just plain terrible.

Folks like www.m-w.com can make it work , Because they have been established forever and would get traffic regardless ....

 

[gazzip]

I have a few domains that I have with + without hyphens - when parked it is the hyphen domains that get the most traffic.

It won't be type in traffic it is likely to be better ranked in the search engines IMO.

 

[Troubled1]

I have several names with hyphens and they seem to do about as well traffic wise as my non hyphen domains. I believe that as long as you have a good site it won't matter much.

 

[Monsterman]

I have my eye on a name that would normaly have a "n" in the middle like ***N*** if the keyword is taken without the hyphen. What do you think?

 

[dev99]

Yep, they are extremely good from an seo perspective, but to me, they just look sort of 'cheap'.

 

[cache]

I have buyer-and-seller.com parked. No traffic. So I assume that if it is not developed, then it has no type in value.

 

[redz]

yes, i have adsense-nonsense.com and it makes it look better than adsensenonsense.com

 

[AdoptableDomains]

In some cases they are not only okay, but required. for example the real domain students-exchange.com which means something entirely different when the "s" is placed on exchange instead of student. In some cases such as this example, it might be detrimental without the hyphen if google decides the wrong word combination and puts you on the filtered adult listings.

I think some words that naturaly have hypens are good as well, such as mother-in-law, co-op, etc. Very long domains fo 3 or more keywords may be easier for people and machines to pick out the keywords correctly.

In general, other than above, I probably wouldn't regsiter a hypen unless all the major TLD's are already taken (and at least a couple developed), which proves the value of the keyword combo.

 

[deu12000]

I personally hate everything with a hyphen but like a few people said from an SEO perspective, if you have the keywords in the domain you get a lot of points (ranking wise) whether there are hyphens or not.

 

[wow!]

I-have-some-domains-with-dashes-and-they-are-getting-top-traffic.com

 

[dochlaggie]

I have some adult names e.g erotic-pic.com, dirty-pic.com,slut-pics, etc. these get great traffic. The main thing I have against names with dashes is trying to tell someone your website url. This to me is a downside to domain names with dashes.