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Dashes In a Domain Name: Better for SEO?

by James Liberty
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Is having dashes in your domain name better for SEO? It seems like these dashes might help the search engines to better recognize each individual keyword. What do you think?
#dashes #domain #seo
  • Profile picture of the author urbt
    Banned
    Personally on a user level, I find 9 times out of 10 that domains with dashes in are spammy sites or just garbage content sites.

    The exception is usually old sites that were built before the web 'came of age', when it seemed logical to use dashes to separate words.
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    • Profile picture of the author jmidas
      Some SEO experts say it makes no difference, that the search engines are smart enough to know the words without the help of the dashes. Some suggest the dashes help *some*. How much is *some* is anyone's guess.

      But, whether it helps a little or not, you need to consider the user experience too. Putting hyphens in a domain name makes it harder for users to remember and to type, so if you have a site where you are hoping a user will remember it and go back to it, I would avoid the hyphens (same concept as using only ".com" for the extension).

      A while ago, I decided to split the difference - I make my domain names without dashes and I name my internal pages with them.
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  • Profile picture of the author hotlinkz
    James,

    Generally search engines don't have a problem parsing non-hyphenated words (as long as they are proper words).

    One problem with hyphenated domain names is that they have a lower perceived value should you ever decide to sell. Also, hyphenated URLs are harder to read out (eg; if you ever give the URL out over the radio). Most listeners will forget the hypens.

    Calvin

    Calvin
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    • Profile picture of the author Jamie Iaconis
      Indeed... the dashes make no difference...

      And also like has been said, usually the domain names
      with dashes do look spammy and I never use hyphens!

      HTH

      Jamie
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    • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
      Originally Posted by hotlinkz View Post

      Generally search engines don't have a problem parsing non-hyphenated words (as long as they are proper words).
      Really? (Anyone else care to chime-in on this?)
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      • Profile picture of the author hotlinkz
        Originally Posted by James Legacy View Post

        Really? (Anyone else care to chime-in on this?)
        Check this article out James. It's not what I would call authoritative, but gives you some insight into what someone else experienced regarding domain name dashes.

        SEO Google ranking - Dump the domain dash
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      • Profile picture of the author Jamie Iaconis
        Originally Posted by James Legacy View Post

        Really? (Anyone else care to chime-in on this?)
        I'll chime in too...

        Look at it this way... if you have hyphens in the domain name, not
        only are you telling the SE's they are seperate words, but you may
        also be missing out on other variations of words in the domain name.

        Does that make sense?

        I know the SE's can parse the words, but also may
        find other combinations that you did not etc.

        I would go no hyphen, but it makes no difference
        other than what I have stated above...

        All the best!
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        • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
          Originally Posted by Jamie Iaconis View Post

          I know the SE's can parse the words, but also may
          find other combinations that you did not etc.
          There can be times where you need to be clear about this...

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          • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
            Ok, now for the tricky one: What about with numbers?

            For example, if I have a website about the '09 Ford F-150, how would the search engines read my domain name if it was "F15009.com"?

            Think they'd still be able to separate the numbers out?
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            • Profile picture of the author jmidas
              Originally Posted by James Legacy View Post

              Ok, now for the tricky one: What about with numbers?

              For example, if I have a website about the '09 Ford F-150, how would the search engines read my domain name if it was "F15009.com"?

              Think they'd still be able to separate the numbers out?
              That may be a bit tougher than words. I dunno. "2009F150.com" may be slightly easier since it seperates the 2 numbers, but I have no experience with numbers used like this. I think, depending on how you are using the site (I am guessing it would be a site that you would hope for clicks from SEO,PPC,etc., not necessarily hope people remember and type in), if I had to create a domain for that, I would use the dashes in this case.
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          • Profile picture of the author ploked
            Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

            There can be times where you need to be clear about this...

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            and, the all time winner, expertsexchange.com
            you forgot penisland.com
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            get plugged in @ ploked.com and get stoked about social media.

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  • Profile picture of the author DavidTheMavin
    I am totally anti-dashes in the domain, but love them in the sub folders/files.
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  • Profile picture of the author AfteraDream
    Dashes suck.... it makes hard to remember domain, especially if it is long. Forget those, create a brand not something for Google. Google ain't gonna buy stuff from you...
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  • Profile picture of the author sainshea
    Its hard to remember those but I feel there is no issue of dashes in Search engine rankings
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  • Profile picture of the author TechBlog
    well i guess you shouldnt have any of those dashes ... u can go for long domains not a problem though
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  • Profile picture of the author ripsnorta2
    From my understanding it depends on what sort of traffic you are aiming at. If it's type-in traffic, then dashes aren't a good idea. But if it's search engine traffic, or links from other sites then as long as you are providing good, non-spammy content it shouldn't matter at all, except for a few edge cases where you might get SERPs from variations on the name.
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  • Profile picture of the author corsair
    From all I've read , the exact match bonus in Google doesn't count for domains with dashes , plus dashes are harder to remember for consumers.
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  • Profile picture of the author intelinside
    Dashes don't make any difference from SE point of view but the motive is to bring in traffic one way or the other..right?

    So, in this respect, dashes in domain names are hard to remember by the users.

    Even if you get organic SE traffic and users come to your site but you won't see much in your 'returning visitors' column or in 'No Referral' column.
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