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Hyphenated Domains for Direct Traffic

by ukcharliee
10 replies
Hi everyone,

I am thinking about buying a domain for a website in which I hope to get most of my traffic by direct-typing in the URL bar. (so not bothered about SEO etc).

Do you think hyphenated domains are easier to type and understand as opposed to domains with no spacing. (my url will have 3 words)

eg

hello-im-charlie.com
helloimcharlie.com

Thanks in advance,

Charlie
#direct #domain #domains #hypen #hyphenated #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by ukcharliee View Post

    Do you think hyphenated domains are easier to type and understand as opposed to domains with no spacing
    Yes, I think they can be, certainly. And - depending on the structure of the words - they can certainly look better (as the owners of such businesses as "Pen Island" and "Mole Station Nurseries" eventually discovered).

    For myself, I would also register the unhyphenated version of the url, too, even if all I did with it was redirect it to the hyphenated version I'm using, because I certainly wouldn't want to build a business on a domain-name of which the unhyphenated .com version belonged to someone else; the way to make sure that doesn't happen is to register it myself. That covers you for people mistyping/forgetting.

    (This has nothing to do with SEO at all: hyphens play no role in that.)
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  • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
    Hyphens should never have been allowed in domains.

    They are a branding nightmare in that WarriorForum.com is "warrior forum dot com" but Warrior-Forum.com is "warrior hyphen forum dot com."
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    • Profile picture of the author AdamJ85
      For direct traffic, I think hyphenated domains are a lot worse than non-hyphenated ones. People are likely to forget the hyphen...
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I actually like hyphenated domain names. Mine is. It's easy to remember, and i get alot of traffic to my site anyway.... strictly through direct marketing strategies alone... and indirect traffic from the search engines.
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  • Profile picture of the author WebMeUp
    Hello ukcharliee!

    There are some pros and cons of using hyphenated domain names.

    Some webmasters prefer not to use hyphens in domain names because searchers might get confused and enter the wrong URL. In this case, they may get to a competing site instead of yours.

    On top of that, hyphenated domains are rather difficult to read aloud.

    But some SEOs claim that the potential for search engine success makes the hyphens worth the risk. Say, if you have a long domain name that consists of several words, it will be a lot easier to read and remember when hyphenated.

    Just compare:

    e.g. LodonGraphicDesignAndPrinting.Com and Lodon-Graphic-Design-And-Printing.Com

    Also, using hyphens lets your keywords stand out to humans and search engines.

    So we advise you to consider the above mentioned factors, and if in your case the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, why not to pick up a hyphenated domain name?
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  • Profile picture of the author tritrain
    Hyphens are easily forgotten. At this point in time, go for the 2 word domain or a brandable 5 or 6 character domain.

    Something catchy and easy to remember.
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    I use to like super hyphenated domain names. They use to be great for SEO years ago. Well, this is a new era. Google probably penalizes em now. That is because super hyphenated domain names were used for spam. Getting all the facts would take too much space. However, they are a red flag now. Frankly, they are almost as bad as .INFO domain names. People say that domain name optimization or DMO was very vague. Also, that it is difficult to measure. Folks, like this is just pure nonsense. I can define it by measuring conversions. Basically, your percent conversions goes up. Try it if you do not believe me.
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  • Profile picture of the author apeee
    Originally Posted by ukcharliee View Post

    Do you think hyphenated domains are easier to type and understand as opposed to domains with no spacing. (my url will have 3 words)
    Charlie
    Hyphenated domains are not easy to type and certainly not easy to remember.
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  • Profile picture of the author DoubleOhDave
    The only site I ever bad with a hyphenated name was one I added two posts to and lost interest in about a year ago... Bizarrely I made more money on that site from adsense than I did on any other site, ever...combined. It doesn't seem like a hyphenated name puts off visitors!
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  • Profile picture of the author mraffiliate
    If you plan on doing any radio advertising "from a fiverr gig for example" a hyphenated domain would be difficult to get across to the listening audience. Like a poster mentioned above, get both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated version and redirect the non to the hyphenated.
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