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?

 

[webscorpion]

When I started in this "game", I believed that hyphenated domains always took a backseat to their non-hyphenated versions. I know that most of you are "domaineers" and abhor hyphenated domains.

When I "drifted" into SEO, an additional perspective opened. When relying on search engine results, the hyphenated version can be very effective! Search engine spiders are not like humans when they read your web pages. They will easily "read", "identify", and "index" those keywords in the hyphenated domains.

So bottom line is, get both if available. Use the non-hyphenated version for branding and advertising. Use the hyphenated one for SERP. Imagine what an Overture result of 20,000 can send traffic to your site

Hope this helps.

 

[SharkBite]

It's worth pointing out that there are exceptions - Germans seem to love long hyphenated domains (probably because they have a lot of long composite words and so they need the hyphen just to visually separate them). But hyphenated names aren't great for reselling unless you've got some very useful keywords in.

 

[hookah]

Hello,
generally speaking it is difficult to estimate how dash works in particular domain name because it is usually substituted with space in Google or Overture results. However there are some names/expressions which naturally consist dash. Some of them are quite popular as searched keywords and usually already registered with 'big five' extensions (com, net, org, info, biz). But...there are often still available for registration with some country extensions. If you know for sure that chosen name is mostly written with dash (i.e. you are looking for o-zone.ext) and you find that Overture lists this name with particular extension as i.e. 'o zone.ext' 896 - just register it if possible. According to my experience it means that this name is a traffic name and gains many visitors so can potentially earn some money on Sedo or other parking program. Of course the necessary condition is that chosen name is commonly written with dash.

But if you don't care about traffic but just need particular name planning to invest in some kind of internet service (so you are planning to market your domain name and service actively) - just register the name you mostly like even it consists dash.
Greetings, H.

 

[Ferman]

try to read it:
the hypen car hypen shop
and try to read it:
the car shop

which sounds better and easy to write?

 

[redhippo]

my three word hypenated online market name is earning me $$$ a month anyone's got anymore ...selll them to me!!

hypen rocks!!

 

[Redleg]

I have hyphens (1) on my biggest site, and it gets up to 10,000 visitors pr day, so I don't have any problems with them..

For sites that relies on searchengines and links, hyphens are no problem at all (it may infact be much better to use hyphens), but for sites that relies on radio/phone ads (or any spoken ad), non-hyphens are best...
And it may look more professional with the non-hyphenated domain as well.

My tip is to get both...
Use the hyphenated one on your site (for SEO), and forward the non-hyphenated one to the site, to catch the type ins...

 

[cera]

Haha ... so it's unanimous ... hyphens in domain names are
a) OK
b) a waste of time and money
c) good for seo
d) good for nothing.

Glad we clarified that one.

 

[Redleg]

C. is clear. They are without doubt good for SEO in many ways.

 

[webscorpion]

All things being equal, a hyphenated domain will come out ahead in the SERP.

 

[GamingHybrid]

I agree with Redleg

GOD BLESS

 

[Sharpy]

Hyphens are fine. All this talk about type-in(pardon the hyphen ) is silly. How many domain names do any of you own that have any type-in traffic? Not many. How many advertise on radio? How many advertise in print? TV? How many of you rely mainly on se traffic or paid ads? I would bet most of us. Well people never even look at the url when they click on se suggestions or ads. So, come-to-my-site-and-buy-something.com is as good or better than cometomysiteandbuysomething.com when it comes to traffic from se's and ads. And don't get me started on extensions lol

 

[SharkBite]

but even for companies with hyphenated domains who never advertise on radio or TV, they lose traffic via word of mouth and people forgetting to type the hyphen. Personally I don't think hyphens are that bad for developing sites with but they drastically reduce the sale value of the name because of the number of resellers that won't buy them. Hyphenated names also carry some negative associations because spammers like to use them.

It's worth pointing out that Germany is a major exception to the rule - so many German language company websites use hyphens that people there must be pretty used to putting the hyphens in.

 

[redhippo]

there is a urban-legend that someone is grabbing "hypens" while deriding it

 

[biggie]

This is an "old" thread, but I recently sold a .com domain with 3 hyphens!

ie: domain-domain-domain-domain(dot)com

The key is the Keywords

 

[tim1]

So if the key is keywords. Could you have a really really long list of them seperated by hyphens in your domain name, but have a more memorable domain that people can also type in to forward you there?
Also, if you wanted a domain with keywords in it, but the .com's are taken, could you just use the .info version then have another domain forward to it?
Or are keywords in the domain not worth the bother?

 

[biggie]

So if the key is keywords. Could you have a really really long list of them seperated by hyphens in your domain name, but have a more memorable domain that people can also type in to forward you there?
Also, if you wanted a domain with keywords in it, but the .com's are taken, could you just use the .info version then have another domain forward to it?
Or are keywords in the domain not worth the bother?

my viewpoint is......

keywords are always "worth the bother".

hyphens can be a tough sell/sale, even in .com!
the keywords like these are popular...

ie:
music-online
music-download
video-download
poker-anyword
home-loan
home-refinance
free-phone
e-anyword

etc.

I would not get a hyphenated .info domain, unless I had the .com also.
Other than .com's, I prefer .org

 

[Qwert]

It's sometimes annoying to type in a hypen. I basicially use only letters, not even numbers, when I type. If I am using anything other then letters then I am looking at the keyboard.

 

[Gregoire]

Hyphen are often used by big companies here in France ...

And they advertise their site on Radio ...

there is even a big (really big) radio whose website has a hyphen in it (france-info.com and radio-france.com).

And see what happened to the non hyphenated version :

http://www.franceinfo.com/

Grégoire.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

for SEO or actual use, hyphens are very good...But only if you also have the unhyphenated version as well since potential customers WILL type it in without. Of course their can be good reasons to have generic (not trademarked) dashed versions of competitors site names or just generic industry names pointed at your site.

There are some cases where you ONLY want the dashed name publicly. For a couple examples, take the dash out of these and see what you get:

50s-hits.tld (50 what?)
students-exchange.tld (student sexchange?)
johns-pit-crew.tld (or is it john spit crew)

Dashes are also useful if the domain would have triple letters to avoid confusion as well, but again, it is nice to still have the undashed version:

stressstuff.com looks better as stress-stuff.com
tallladies vs. tall-ladies

For resale, I think dashed names are pretty much a hard sell unless bundled. In most cases if you find the undashed version you can still register the dashed or at least pick up their mistypes.

BTW, Is it a hyphen or a dash? :hehe: I prefer dash since its only one syllable to say.

 

[Mr. Deleted]

I own (with Martin23) the Deleted.com domain, and I found that even though it is a 1 word, generic .com, when I tell people that I run Deleted.com, they often think I said DeleteIt.com, so I went and reged that name too... However I agree if you are going to reg a non-dash name, and promote it a lot, then get the dash too. But a small budget site, like my client's basket4everyone.com I would say that basket-4-everyone.com is not worth the reg fee.

But I also agree with those that say promoteing a dash is not worth the effort. I have a couple names that I concider traffic (adult) names, cause they have links, but they have quite a few dashes and are .biz. free-gay-picture.biz is not a name I would want to promote, but I reged it cause of the links. (It currently points to deleted, just so you know I'm not promoting an adult site here)