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do hyphens in domain names matter for seo?

by Riddley Walker
4 replies
Been searching for some domain names tonight that are keyword related.
Would you recommend a .com with hyphens inbetween the keywords or .net and .co.uk without hyphens. What would be better?

While on the subject , does having an "s" as a suffix make any difference to keyword related search e.g. widgetreviewers.com compared to widgetreview.com ?

Thanks,
riddley
#domain #hyphens #matter #names #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Ralf Skirr
    1) Regarding the keyword: SEs will discover any keyword in your domain, no matter if you use hyphens or not.

    2) I would always prefer .com domains. They seem to be preferred by google, and users will almost always type in the .com version when manually typing a domain from memory.

    3) I would never use a domain name with hyphens if someone else owns the same name without hyphens. you are sending your people to the competition this way. They will remember your domain name, but type it without hyphens, and voilá ... they come to your competitors page.

    Ralf
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  • Profile picture of the author Seekness
    .net without hyphens, unless you're looking to rank specifically for UK searchers - in which case I'd go with the .co.uk. There's nothing wrong with doing hyphens, but it won't give you the inherent benefit that an exact domain match in .com, .net. or .org gives you. With some dedicated backlinking you'll be able to rank for the domain with hyphens, but I'd always take an exact match in .net or .org first.
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  • Profile picture of the author option
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Marshall
      You can also add a number to the end of your domain name to get closer to the domain name you want and get a .com
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      • Profile picture of the author Riddley Walker
        Great comments ! Love this forum

        Has anybody got any thoughts on the "s" suffix added to the end of a domain? I read somwhere that google ignores the "s"
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