Hyphenated Domain Name?

[ZachJones]

Hello everyone!

I am completely new to IM, but have been doing some extensive research on the topic over the past couple months. I have decided on persuing the "diet" niche for my first website. I have been trying to find a good domain name but all the ones I think would be perfect have already been registered.. I have found a couple of .com's that would fit my niche well but to include the keywords i want, I would need to use a hyphenated domain name. I have read very conflicting things about using a hyphenated name but I feel like if i dont, then I will have to settle for something alot more abstract. What experiances do you have with this? Does it even matter?

Thanks alot in advance

Zach

[BIG Mike]

Hi Zach,

There is no problem at all with using hyphenated domain names - the negative things you've read are just urban legends parrotted over and over on the net. I've used them for years successfully and never had any difficulty ranking on page one consistently.

If you go do a search of Google, Yahoo, etc., you'll find hyphenated domains are indexed, rank just as well (assuming proper SEO is used), than non-hyphneated domains.

[ZachJones]

thanks guys! I kinda figured/hoped it was how well you implement SEO into your site but i wanted to make sure i wasn't about to make a newbie mistake

[RanD]

Originally Posted by Joeman

for SEO, hyphens are fine, its only if youre telling somebody verbally your domain that the can become an issue.
Its a pain having to tell people that is

"w w w My hyphen site dot com"

instead of just

"w w w MySite dot com"

dont fear the hyphens!!

Yep, that's the only real issue. Avoid hyphens with any domain that you will need to refer to by name verbally, like if you set up a website for your business, or if you want people to easily remember the name for repeat business to a site. People tend to remember names, but forget the hyphens, so your business could end up going to someone else's site. The search engines could care less though.

[Dave777]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

Hi Zach,

There is no problem at all with using hyphenated domain names - the negative things you've read are just urban legends parrotted over and over on the net. I've used them for years successfully and never had any difficulty ranking on page one consistently.

If you go do a search of Google, Yahoo, etc., you'll find hyphenated domains are indexed, rank just as well (assuming proper SEO is used), than non-hyphneated domains.

When it comes to the domaining industry many don't recommend them for a variety of reasons! But there's Definitely some excellent Hyphenated money making opportunities if you're Quick and smart at snatching and focusing on misc. Hyphenated domaining for all sorts of business related reasons and uses... Especially Geo locally etc. etc...
DNHeadlines Exchange | Hyphenated Domain Names

Dave

[rondo]

For SEO they are ok and there are plenty of good ones left.
I suggest using no more than 2 hyphens. eg www.budget-web-hosting.com
Any more than 2 looks a bit silly.


Andrew

[Tracey_Meagher]

If you are building a niche site that doesn't require any branding, hypenated is fine. If you want to develop a large authority type site, I would definitely focus on finding a memorable non-hypenated domain name.

[CliveG]

I have used domain names both with and without hyphens and have not really noticed any difference except when communicating the name orally when names without hyphens are preferable.

However, if you have the option of a .com with hyphens or an alternative without hyphens go for the .com everytime.

[Okane]

You can also use more than one hyphen... in a row! (like I do in my signature)

I am not sure if Google likes this, though.

I think it's ok for competitive keywords.
Humans prefer clicking on something like "lose--weight.com" instead of "my-loseweight101.com"

[StephenDavies]

I would always go for a hyphenated .com domain name over an un-hyphenated non .com name.

I think that the only disadvantage is that it if you choose the hyphenated version of the name it appears that the person who chose the un-hyphenated version got there before you.

But as others have said when it coes to SEO there is no difference.

Stephen.

[sgsmorgan]

The only difference comes when you are buying a domain name for pure domaining purposes and type in traffic. Then it ranks:

domain name unhyphenated
domain name hyphens

In fact if you are trying to go for type in traffic (and who is nowadays?) then forget about hyphenated domains as that is not by and large how people think when they type in information into the url bar.

Aside from that one difference then there is very little difference - imho

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by Okane

You can also use more than one hyphen... in a row! (like I do in my signature)

I am not sure if Google likes this, though.

I think it's ok for competitive keywords.
Humans prefer clicking on something like "lose--weight.com" instead of "my-loseweight101.com"

I read somewhere (maybe Matt Cutts?) that double or triple hyphens raise a flag at Google. Never tried it, so am not sure if it's valid or not.

[Marhelper]

I just saw a thread about this a few days ago. It is total legend - I have ranked 20 or 30 sites with hyphenated domain names.