question about "partial" hyphen domains and SEO

[chenkev]

Hey guys,

So everybody knows that no hyphens > hyphens. That's a given. Assume you can't get the no hyphens domain.

I remember reading a long time ago that if you cant get the non-hyphenated domain, you should use the least amount of hyphens possible. However I've never actually seen anyone put this to practice.

For example say you're main target keyword is "best diet pills". Which domain would you prefer? Which one would be better for SEO?

best-diet-pills.com
bestdiet-pills.com

The second one looks kind of strange to me. Still, curious about your thoughts.

[yangman2011]

2 hyphens in a domain looks weird as well. I'd rather go for .net or .org and no further than that.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by chenkev

So everybody knows that no hyphens > hyphens. That's a given.

To you it's apparently a "given".

But that makes the conversation difficult and unappealing for anyone who knows a little more about the subject (such as those aware of Google's Matt Cutts, who has explained in detail, in writing and on video, exactly why your starting assumption is so fundamentally mistaken).

And that doesn't make for a great discussion ... sorry.

[allenjohn]

Hi,

Unscientific test;

anniversary poems - Google Search

Two hyphenated results in the top 10, one of which is mine. Having said that, I'd personally go nohyphens.com or .org or .net, given the choice. I have also tried the one-hyphenbut (.com) there should be two approach, with little success.

Hope this helps.

All the very best, Allen

[TryBPO]

We have hyphens and non-hyphens. Our (limited) experience with this is that hyphenated domains are harder to rank. (Don't rank as well without more linkbuilding done) I've had more experience testing .info's though...our test here is quite limited so take it for what it's worth.

Here's Matt talking about dashes in the domain:
Dashes vs. underscores

He specifically states they don't penalize for it.

I will say this though: He says they don't "penalize" for dashes, but I believe more "weight" is given to those that don't have the dashes...

[JayVance]

I'll just add that I have seen no difference between my sites that have hyphens and the ones that don't. Using proper SEO and backlinking strategies you can rank any site.

Look at the highly competitive keyword "make money online"

There is 5 websites that don't even have that keyword in their domain name yet they rank higher than makemoneyonline .com. I doubt it plays hardly a role in ranking.

[diablostoo]

Personally i think for Google it could make a slight difference.. but Yahoo it can actually help in my experience. I like to use hyphened domains, basically because it the easiest way to get the keywords in the domains, as the non hyphened are mostly take for most niches.. and i have done well in ranking them.

But as mentioned is it really that important to have the keywords in the domain as websites with no keywords can rank very well as proven. Although these are normally websites of very high authority, and are backlinked massively.. or have alternative marketing campaigns costing a lot of money.

But i have a website ranking 5th at the minute with 2 hyphens in the domain.. so i will see how it goes..

[addaminsane]

I personally would rather get a non hyphenated tld such as a .me or .co than a hyphenated .com. Alot of people are afraid to test these tlds out, but once they're indexed for a bit, they become just as powerful of an exact match (close anyways) as a .com, and can definitely outrank the other exact matches with good seo.

[jhnbrwn]

you should approach to first domain, containing 2 hyphens, because the big G consider the hyphen as a space, ultimately will make the Big G to read it comfortably.

Regards

[soulpower]

who cares....optimize and backlink that ****er, stop obsessing