A question regarding "hyphenated domain names"

[RoniShwartz]

Hi,



As far as SEO value is concerned, would you say that hyphenated domain names are :

1. Better than non-hyphenated domains
2. Worse than non-hyphenated domains
3. Nor better neither worse than non-hyphenated domains

Example: new-york-travel-tips.com (hyphenated) VS newyorktraveltips.com (non-hyphenated) : Which of the two do you reckon will get more "SEO juice" from Google / Yahoo and their likes ???

Thanks, Roni

[sylarrr]

hypened seems too spammy to me...maybe for google too

[RoniShwartz]

Originally Posted by sylarrr

hypened seems too spammy to me...maybe for google too

Thanks Sylarrr,

I thought that hyphenated domain names areused when you find out you have no good non-hyphen options left... Do you have a SOLID reason to believe search engines consider them spammy, or is it just your feeling ?

[Kevin Marshall]

Hyphenated names can work. I speak from personal experience.

When I first started in IM years ago, I bought a domain with hyphens between every word. I didn't know what I was doing, but I still have that site today because it makes money on autopilot with adsense every month.

I rank second in Bing for the keyword the domain is targeting.

[Domainate]

You can certainly get a better exact match domain for the money with a hyphenated name, and a lot of people do this for SEO purposes. That said, they do look spammy and cheap, so I'm not sure how well they ultimately would convert for most things.

We generally get domains without hyphens but sometimes the keywords are good enough to prompt getting a hyphenated name, and ultimately we've sold a lot of hyphenated names for decent prices.

[oogyboogawa]

I had a hyphenated domain sitting at #2 in Google for a while without a ton of work(until I did something stupid with it).

It wasn't a really tough keyword or anything but I was beating non-hyphened domains.

I've got another one working it's way up the rankings right now.

In most cases I prefer non-hyphenated but sometimes I actually think the hyphens make it more readable.

[Tashi Mortier]

Originally Posted by oogyboogawa

In most cases I prefer non-hyphenated but sometimes I actually think the hyphens make it more readable.

Yeah, especially if it is pen-island.com instead of penisland.com

Somehow, I don't think it looks cheap if there are hyphens in the name, I even prefer those domains as they are much easier to read.

I think it's useless to start the discussion which ones are better again. Most discussions showed that it makes no real measurable difference. I wonder if Google has trouble identifying what is meant in the example given above... Does it recognize the male genitalia + land or pen island? Could be important! <gg>