So what's wrong with hyphens

[cera]

I mean something like d-o-m-a-i-n-n-a-m-e.com is just plain dumb, but what's wrong with (for example) the-car-shop.com?

Obviously thecarshop.com would be preferred, but the hyphenated version is actually easier to read (for business card/print/email ads).
I would think that from a SEO point of view the hyphenated version would be better.
Do people really have a problem figuring out the difference between a hyphen and an underscore?

 

[1rrr1]

hyphen is 1 more char to type in.

 

[primacomputer]

I constantly hear people raving about their hyphenated domains and search engines. Usually it's something like "200k results on yahoo for "stupid-people.com"!!!" I pray we can all agree that using that statistic is, well, stupid.

Then there's this story about search engines not being able to index keywords in a domain name unless they are separated by hyphens. This must have been true at some time. It has been repeated so many times, and all these people can't be wrong. (Or am I just being naive) Today, of course, it's verifiable bullshit. Google even bolds the keyword right in the middle of a domain name in your search results.

So we are left with this etheric concept of the search engines indexing "better" with hyphens. Given the track record of these hyphenation claims I simply can't buy into it.

There are many good reasons for having a hyphenated name. Someone might type it in. It keeps others from knocking off your brand. In some cases it just looks better. I've never seen anything beside anecdotal evidence to support the SEO theory.

 

[Mark]

Maybe So - But as stated above by others .... One of my highest paying / Most visited "Parked" Domains has a hyphen as well ~ It seems to be just heading toward what you prefer !

Many folks in here will not register domains over a certain amount of letters/characters - That is silly to Me and many others as well - Short and Brandable doesn't always mean Better either (Depending on what you plan to use it for) - My Best Domain as far as Sales and Clickthroughs go right now happens to be a 3 worder (Long as my Arm) lol - But it is Straight to the point and a highly searched term ~

I guess there will always be different ideas for what works best in Marketing and SEO - and We will have to agree to disagree :p

 

[homebuyer]

Worst hyphen around is...

Teresa Heinz-Kerry.

 

[cera]

Google even bolds the keyword right in the middle of a domain name in your search results.

Google does recognize a search word buried in the domain name but Google also ranks it lower than if its the only word in the domain name or if it's seperated from the rest of the domain name with a hyphen.

Other factors come into play (number of backlinks,PR, etc.) but if they are equal then:

in the case of topgun.com vs top-gun.com
if the search term is "topgun" then topgun.com wins
if the search term is "top gun", "top" or "gun" then top-gun.com wins

 

[AdsenseGuy]

Hyphens IMHO do not infringe upon SERP as a matter of fact search engine algorithms dont even see the - so some of the a-b-o-v-e examples will rank just as high as the actual word.

Cera I have to agree with your above statement but i must add that when most people using a search engine are typing in their query they usually type the (space) between words, They do not search for domainnameregistrationwebsites so for someone trying to key in on keyword enriched domains I would reccommend using the - but if you are strictly a domain speculator then these are hard sells because there are many variations to every domain available for reg fee.

I personally have started a test regarding the above mentioned w-o-r-d type of domains, This domain in reference was purchased and set live on Sept 18 it has been visited by search bots and has some pages indexed, The stats for this are comparable to other sites with the same content, The search engines recognize it as the word itself.

On another note, I have read in here that the advertising media's such as TV radio, newsprint ect have all been mentioned in this thread, I for one would like to know who if any of you are currently advertising your domain in a TV campaign? I think that the majority of posters in this thread rely heavily on search engine traffic for their websites, and there is nothing wrong with that but unless your have 13k for 12 /30 second TV spots on a weekly basis I would advise you to BUY the domain you feel you can work best with, If you are relying on search engines for your traffic and the best avaialable domain that describes your site and is the keywords that you want most has -'s then go for it...Buy that one and promote it. Just because domain speculators SAY -'s domains are a hard sell does not mean that they are not suitable for what you want to do with it.

Remember you are getting most of your traffic from SE's unless your advertising budget exceeds 500k annually, and if you have 500k annually to market your domain then talk to the speculators about buying that single word domain you can afford it.

Just my 2cents,

 

[_^_]

"So what's wrong with hyphens"

They are negative! :bingo:

Regards: _^_

 

[primacomputer]

in the case of topgun.com vs top-gun.com
if the search term is "topgun" then topgun.com wins
if the search term is "top gun", "top" or "gun" then top-gun.com wins

This is not the way Google behaves on my hyphenated vs unhyphenated names

 

[cera]

This is not the way Google behaves on my hyphenated vs unhyphenated names

As I said, there are numerous other variables that come into play, but from my observations & non-scientific study - that's generally how it works. Would like to see an example of a hyphenated/unhyphenated that doesn't fit.

 

[primacomputer]

Sorry, I'm not trying to take the piss, but I just had to give it a google...

q=topgun
topgun.com is #1
top-gun.jp is #4 (first top-gun.* result)

q=top gun
topgun.com is #8
top-gun.de is ~#50 (first top-gun.* result)

q=top-gun
topgun.com is #6
top-gun.jp is #21 (first top-gun.* result)

 

[cera]

As I said, there are numerous other variables that come into play

topgun example - these sites are developed sites with PR, keywords,page content,different extensions (TLD compared to ccTLD),etc. which Google may take into consideration.

Note however that the search term with space or hyphen dropped topgun.com from #1 to #8 & #6 in the results.

The difference between "top-gun" results and "top gun" results has me baffled since I was under the impression that google didn't actually search for a hyphen but treated a hyphen as a space.
Confused

 

[primacomputer]

Yes, it’s odd. Google clearly distinguishes between a hyphen and a space in the query string. What’s odd is that the hyphen in the query string actually bumps top-gun.co.jp down to 21 even though it’s #4 with no hyphen or space. I take this as evidence that a hyphen in the domain name does not help rankings.

As an exercise I’m going to do a serious scientific test on one of my hyphen/non-hyphen pairs
.

The names are not expires, were registered in 2000, have no content (403),no back links and are indexed by Google. It should be a simple matter of creating content with a unique keyword such as “dooberywhatitmajiggy”, waiting got Google to spider the site, and doing a search on that keyword.

Any problems or suggested improvements to that methodology?

 

[cera]

Go for it - would love to see the results.

Hey maybe we'll nominate you for a Nobel if you can settle this one once and for all

ps:
Oh - and then Google will go and change their algorithm AGAIN.