Difference in price with a hyphen?

[mrcurly]

Hi,

Does a hyphen in the domain really make a big difference in value -

Take for example -

Smartphones.com

&

Smart-phones.com


Obviously in my eyes the top one is king, however how does the bottom one compare in value?

Say Smartphones.com sells at $5 million , what would Smart-phones.com be worth?

Cheers

Stu

 

[SeanPreston]

In my opinion I've always had a hidden hatred for dashes, they are terrible to promote, especially in person because although it sounds stupid; a lot of people don't know what a "hyphen" is!

From an online approach I don't think it makes that much difference assuming the non-hyphenated domain isn't a competitor.

In my opinion, if I was to start a shop selling mobiles, smatphones.com is likely to be in use and therefor a competitor, so I wouldn't buy it. The only reason I would buy it would be to monitize on it and even then not more than a few grand.

 

[RazorNF]

I have the same feeling. Especially with the promotion part, if you were to do it via audio like radio or just telling someone in person, having to say "dash" or "hyphen" all the time just kills it.

If the non-hyphen was already a business, you'd almost certainly be sending some of your potential customers their way.

Really hard to give it a value, though the non-hyphen site may want it eventually from a defensive point of view, and to protect their trademark if they had one.

 

[JudgeMind]

Im a bit on the fence. To register a domain name with a hyphen for resale I will never do. To register a domain name with a hyphen having the intent to develop it into a site and than sell it, I will do. Check out sites like flippa in their just sold section and currently running auctions. There are many names with hyphens for developed sites.

I personally have had no luck selling just a domain name that is hyphenated.

 

[mrcurly]

To be honest, I don't think I have ever sold a hyphenated name....

 

[lennco]

I am a fan of good hyphenated domains.
I have sold several, one with 2 hyphens.

Germans love hyphens since they use hyphens in their language.
But it has to be really good keywords.

 

[ipodxpert]

I am a fan of good hyphenated domains.
I have sold several, one with 2 hyphens.

Germans love hyphens since they use hyphens in their language.
But it has to be really good keywords.

Agree with you on Germans liking hyphen names

 

[Kate]

Well that depends on the keywords. The problem here is that smartphone will probably be perceived as a single word and the hyphen is not intuitive.
With words such as 'webmaster' the hyphen becomes downright un-natural.
Answer: that depends. Somewhere between 1% and 10% of the non-hyphenated version perhaps :blink: