Exact keyword .co OR a hyphenated keyword .com - which one would YOU buy?

[Martin N Smith]

Hi all,

As you'll see from my previous posts over the past week or so, I'm slowing losing patience with these .co domains.

I've been hunting around the various domain auctions today and i've stumbled on a nice looking yet hyphenated .com to replace one of my .co sites.

Lets say that i'm targeting the keyword:

Cheap Indoor Plants

QUESTION:

Which of the following domains do you think is better for SEO / search traffic ONLY? I'm not interested in direct traffic or how nice the URL looks commercially, all I care about is how Google treats the domains (all on and off site SEO being equal).

Which do you prefer:

1. CheapIndoorPlants.co

2. Cheap-Indoor-Plants.com

Your thoughts, experience and feedback is most welcome as always.

Cheers,
Martin

[paulgl]

Everyone knows what I think of domains, keywords, and extensions.

That said, I will always try hard for a dot com, just because that's what I like.
I still say it makes no difference.

I would go with the hyphen. Hyphens are very good to use and there
is no problem at all. A hyphen will actually have an advantage in many
cases where words slur together. There is no mistake by a visitor as
to what you mean. That's the key, as always.

I think .co is a big bust. I commented before that a .co looks like a
dot com typo. And even though .co was supposed to make tons
of people rich, I have yet to see it.

I can't remember your previous post, so I am assuming you are indeed
talking about a .co extension.

It really should make no difference for SEO. I am one to build brand
awareness, not put all my eggs in the google basket.

Paul

[theseoguys]

I 2nd hyphens, even though I am against hyphens. The verdict is still out on .co, I still think it is a Columbian country extension that is being marketed by domain sellers as the next best thing to .com.

[bgmacaw]

My tendency would be to go with the .com simply because it's $20 cheaper. I can buy two more .com domains or 10-20 .infos with that money!

For SEO purposes, I don't think it matters too much though.

[ru83n]

For long tail keywords and small niche sites I go for exact keywords domain names without hypens regardless of extention (.com, .net, .org & .info). But for authority sites, with high competition, I go even without a keyword in a domain name for as long as its' a .com extention. The name of the game is not in the domain name and extension, its in content and backlink.

[theentry]

I would go for the hyphenated com. Never had a problem with ranking hyphenated domains.

[jhonsean]

As google crawls and index an specific page it doesn't differentiate its physical appearance googles concern is an website that are well optimized and often updating its structures.

[JoeMbulu]

Originally Posted by Martin N Smith

Hi all,

As you'll see from my previous posts over the past week or so, I'm slowing losing patience with these .co domains.

I've been hunting around the various domain auctions today and i've stumbled on a nice looking yet hyphenated .com to replace one of my .co sites.

Lets say that i'm targeting the keyword:

Cheap Indoor Plants

QUESTION:

Which of the following domains do you think is better for SEO / search traffic ONLY? I'm not interested in direct traffic or how nice the URL looks commercially, all I care about is how Google treats the domains (all on and off site SEO being equal).

Which do you prefer:

1. CheapIndoorPlants.co

2. Cheap-Indoor-Plants.com

Your thoughts, experience and feedback is most welcome as always.

Cheers,
Martin

I'd recommend neither. I assume you're interested in ranking for cheap indoor plants. A top level domain (.com,.net,.org) should be your first choice. Also I personally don't like hyphens. In the past, they would help you rank similar to how exact keyword domains do; however, now they really don't help. You would be better off adding a 4 word with no hypens (ie cheapindoorplantsonline.com)