The hyphen

[Elefekt]

ive seen some domains that were registered and yet there was domains wihtout the hyphen still available. does the hyphen make a domain value drop as me and a lot of people beleive? or does it not matter?

 

[jj2ii3344]

I personally do not like names with hyphens in them. I would much prefer names that are straight up together.

 

[armstrong]

Most of the time, the domain without the hyphen is best. But there are cases when the real-world use of the term is hyphenated, and this can be expected to transfer to the internet world. For example, in the US, the term "TV Shopping" is often unhyphenated, so TVShopping.com makes sense. In German, its often hyphenated, so TV-Shopping.de is more acceptable.

 

[Elefekt]

o i get it. if the hyphen is used in the real world it would be better if the domain had it. Thanks for the input.

 

[armstrong]

You're welcome. I forgot to add, as long as you're getting the hyphenated domain, it would make sense to get the unhyphenated version as well, since its only a few dollars more. The other way around isn't always necessary.

 

[Elefekt]

hey very good suggestion. if i get both either way its good. its like templatemonster.com and template-monster.com

 

[jj2ii3344]

Very nicely put Apollo!

 

[Elefekt]

thanks for the input guys.

 

[WhiteLion]

ideally you would like to have the heifen and the no heifen with the name so as to get maximum type ins and traffic.

 

[AdoptableDomains]

There are good reasons to buy and use the hypenated version, but I would ALWAYS want the unhyphenated version as well. As stated before, some companies actually use the hyphen linke U-Haul who uses both versions for their website (u-haul.com and uhaul.com).

Another reason is that keywords are better detected by search engines and software with hyphens separating them. Sometimes it weird combos sound good until you see them without the hyphen. Let's say you have a website specializing in hit songs from the 50's and decide to call it 50's Hits dot com. 50s-hits.com has a totally different look to it than 50shits.com. Does the "s" belong with the 50 or the hits? Same thing for triple letters if you have a site called say Pass saver .com for example, many people will type passaver.com instead of passsaver.com since it looks like too many S's. However, pass-saver.com makes it easy to see the correct spelling.

For speculation, however, I generally stay away from hyphens, as they are ususally available to the end buyer of the unhyphenated version.

Buying the unhyphenated version of a generic in use hyphenated can capture some of the traffic, if it can be done without trademark or unfair use issues such as direct competition.