POLL: Better SEO to choose a domain with dashes or without?

14 years ago

Originally Posted by deckman

I have heard mixed opinions regarding the weight SEO carries in your domain so I would like to see what thoughts are.

What SEO weight (if any) does a domain carry to have your main keyword/phrase in it and/or to have the words separated with dashes ? (yourdomain.com or your-domain.com)

From my experience, the domains without dashes carry more weight and will come up more easily on top than those with dashes.

Regards
Spencer Jones

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WebRank1

14 years ago

Without, however I have had experience with high ranking domains with dashes

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syncnet

14 years ago

I have tested this quite a bit. I will always try to get the domain without dashes first, but if the domain is taken then I will take the dash version and I have been able to get both non-dashed and dashed domains to the top pretty easily.

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deckman

14 years ago

I am guessing that a lot of the weight might also come from how well the content in your site would be optimized.
If I were to go for the dashes then in reality would make it easier to read at a quick glance and therefore easier to remember so as to get more click thru's and therefore give added weight to SEO?

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1 reply

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paulgl

14 years ago

Domains do not get ranked, PR, or SEO'd.
Websites do.

You can choose x-y-z.com and rank for whatever
you choose. Spend time on doing real SEO.

People will show you parlor tricks and be convincing.

Choosing a domain is not really part of the SEO
process. Unfortunately, people have put it there and
make domain brokers and resellers rich.

What is vastly more important is your url structure
afterwards.

Here's a good one for the naysayers:
Do a search for: human extinction survival

Notice what site is #1? Don't bother, I'll answer: xyz.org

Paul

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1 reply

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aaramire

14 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Domains do not get ranked, PR, or SEO'd.
Websites do.

You can choose x-y-z.com and rank for whatever
you choose. Spend time on doing real SEO.

People will show you parlor tricks and be convincing.

Choosing a domain is not really part of the SEO
process. Unfortunately, people have put it there and
make domain brokers and resellers rich.

What is vastly more important is your url structure
afterwards.

Here's a good one for the naysayers:
Do a search for: human extinction survival

Notice what site is #1? Don't bother, I'll answer: xyz.org

Paul

Thanks for clearing that up. Unfortunately there is a lot of inaccurate information relating to SEO.

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Marketing Ignite

14 years ago

Yes the domain as a keyword helps..I know this is true as I have tested this along with loads of other relevant factors...for the subpages it should be with a hyphen as Google will then treat it as separate keywords...you should be thinking of the domain name more in the light of the business direction you want to take it...dont just do it for seo...there are many things you can do to drive traffic to it so seo is only one part..

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Midas3 Consulting

14 years ago

Cutts has said, that if you have an overtly large number
of hypens in a domain, they may consider it liable to be
keyword stuffing.

He didn't clarrify what "large" meant, he didn't clarrify
what "may" meant.

Jerry West saw no issue with 2 hypens but showed
small signs of worsening positions with 2+

If you're running adwords, a hypen is actually preferable
in the advert , it helps the surfer to clearly read your domain.

For example:

www.free-50inch-plasma.com

Is easier to read than:

free50incheplasma.com

As far as SEO goes, I really wouldn't worry.

There's no significant statistical data showing
hypens can have a negative impact your position.

I would simply avoid domains with more than 2 to
be on the safe side. Cutts was simply to vague
on the matter to be clear but better to be safe
than sorry.

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Fernando Veloso

14 years ago

Use them all the time with one hyphen and never had problem with them.

But this week saw a blogspot similar to this: mykeyword-againkeyword-bestkeyword-topkeyword.blogspot etc, ranking top 10 for a credit repair longtail keyword.

I am not saying you should do the same. In fact, this is the only URL I've seen with more then one hyphen ranking high and probably it won't rank for that long...

Fernando

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Dr.faizan

14 years ago

I never faced any problem with the domain name.. Domain name doesn't really have any effect on the seo but yes it may get you some X factor and a little edge than other sites.. For your question dash or no dash.. use anything you would like to.. I prefer domains without dashes as they are easy to remember and a layman can easily remember it..

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deckman

14 years ago

So is it safe to say that it carries absolutely no weight at all?

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DaveDunn

14 years ago

Id say makes no odds. Concentrate on the other elements like content and linking.

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deckman

14 years ago

Bottom line is I am about to buy another domain for my local offline contracting biz. My main localized keyword actually has a pretty good search volume so I thought that I would capitalize on it getting more sales leads. The competition is about average and the keyword with my city included.com is already taken so it is a toss up to get a dot com with dashes or just go to a dot net.

Thanks for everyone that gave input!

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kotaspain

14 years ago

I use SBI to build my site and they recommend that you do use dashes in between your words.

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deckman

14 years ago

Dang Kotaspain. Thought I had my mind settled on this issue and there you go throwing me a curve ball. LOL
I dabbled with SBI 2-3 years ago and thats about all I did with it. Guess I need to take another look. If it makes more sense to me than wordpress then I may try it.