Does not matter. The only time where I believe this would matter is if you were trying to capture users from outside the search engine. For example FrancoCostumes probably advertises outside of the internet so having no hyphens works out well for them. Its easier to remember also.

But if your traffic will come from search engines, it absolutely does not matter. Grab the hyphen-less domain if available, but grab the hyphen domain if thats all that is left. Lastly, as I said in another post there is no concrete evidence that a .info will rank differently than a .com, however, there will be plenty of people who will tell you their personal experience with either. You will need to discern from those how you feel about it...

Hi Green,

If you are planning to hyphenate, make sure that there aren't too many unless you are going to use hyperlinks so people won't have to type in the URL. Too many and they won't even bother with that.

There are many schools of thought on the .com .org and .net dilemma. Although .com seems to be the favorite of choice, the mighty google apparently sees all 3 as being equal at this point in time.

Hope that helps,

cheers

I like domains without hypens but I really don't think they have a huge effect on a site's rankings.

I do not think it really matters. Placing in SERPS depends on how well you optimize and not necessarily what is included in your URL.

Nonetheless making your URL as simple as possible helps people remember your site better. If you use hyphens keep it at one at the most and the ending, well dot com is preferable but not am obligation. JUST work very hard on both your on-page and off-page SEO.

Check further into Google recommendations. It is like a word scramble puzzle without hyphenations. Unless your front page text is clear, "scramble" could be seen by Google as scram, cram, ram, etc. Also it is excellent, using one or two to get a keyword domain name otherwise taken. Also then helps with keywords in website articles and Google rankings having one or more of the keywords in the url.

I agree with Razer Rage, test it by getting both, especially if your words when run together make another word that is out of context.
Generally though, avoid hyphens, where possible, and from experience you will rank higher.

Domain name with hypens is obviously get advantage on SEO but it has some negative result such as it is hard to remember or when you type the url it may not easy to recall.

I just searched for some pretty competitive terms and did not see any hyphenated domains on the first page. Avoid them for brand ability reasons. (this will assist backlinkability)

True, split testing is the only thing that will answer your question if this happens to be affecting your traffic.

I-have-domains-with-hyphens and domains without hyphens. I think the only time it matters is if you do offline audio advertising, such as radio spots. Then it's awkward to have to include hyphens when you're trying to give a domain name.

Just-my-opinion.

Now you got it with the above comments:
1. Test both with and without
2. Hyphens - skip for branding
3. Hyphens - use for stealing taken great keyword urls
4. Hyphens - skip for short domain names
5. Hyphens - use if stretcheddomainname could confuse Google in thinking its true meaning is retch.

Lots of very excellent points by the posters to consider first.

Hypenated for Adwords etc, it's easier for a viewer to see

www.sex-advice-for-teens.com

Is easier to see than

www.sexadviceforteens.com

For SEO, generally avoid, Jerry West, who at least does
significant testing in this area advises to keep hypens to a
max of 1 , if you must use them.

Matt Cutts has said that they are liable to view domains
with multiple hypens negatively.

I was told some time ago by Gina Gaudio-Graves aka the JV Queen that domains without hyphens will rank higher in Google and ones with, will rank higher in YAHOO??? Personally I think if you do your SEO it won't matter much just that a domain without hyphens will be easier to remember and the dot com is the first thing someone types when searching for you.

Think about when you are not sure of a site name, don't you type dot com first?

Dennis

i say always go for the non hyphen domain names 1st

Most, if not all current search engines are smart enough to figure out the words in a domain name without the help of hyphens.

Plus, it's easier to tell your offline prospects your website address without saying... hyphen hyphen hyphen... and getting them all confused.

Hey

I always use hyphens if I cant get the exact match domain. But make sure you get a .com or a .co.uk ... for SEO a .net or a .org are also good. Hyphens or no hyphens, it only matters if you want to get an exact match domain bonus for ranking purposes, then you want no hyphens at all but JUST the keyword.

For anything else like PPC, a .com or .co.uk with hyphens will be perfctly fine.

Any questions just let me know

Nick

Domains with hyphens dont seem to perform as well as Domains without hyphens. But this only lasts till you get started with your off-page optimization(read backlinks). Once you kick start your backlinking, these dont matter as much.

Hypthens don't have a negative affect on search engine rankings, it will act like a space seperating the words from each other, your url will have more relevancy with hypthens imbetween the keywords of your domain name rather than it all bunched together in one word.

I have a hyphenated domain and it ranks quite well in the SE's - I get over 10,000 visitors a month to my site.

Do proper SEO and it shouldn't be a problem.

Lets keep this simple: The domain has no bearing on your ranking... PERIOD. Your site name could be oirehfius.com .net .org .cc .anything... and it will rank just as well as any other domain name. Google ranks sites based on Referential Integrity, which is basically quality targeted links from quality targeted sites with related anchor text & quality targeted content. Google, Wikipedia, Amazon... The name of these sites have literally nothing to do with what they are about or what they do, but they manage to rank quite well.

The one thing a good domain will do is make it easier for your users to remember, and more importantly increase your SERP CTR. So if your site is about making money and is named oirehfius.com and its ranked #1 for your keyword "make money" and the #2 site is also about making money and is called make-money.com. Even though your site ranks higher, make-money.com may have more clicks from the SERP because people may think that site #2 is more relevant "make money". But the domain itself has absolutely nothing to do with the actual ranking.

I like a shorter domain name .com with no hyphens if possible. Some say hyphens are alright if the words are hyphenated to reflect your keywords. But overall I like no hyphens. You can always make a post with yoursite . com / your-keyword-post . php or something.

What about getting a hyphenated domain that was made up of your main keyword or two and then redirecting it to your site?

Would that help the site?

Thanks-Stuart

@stuarthe No. because where would those links be? if you link from another site to domain1, then it redirects to your main domain, all the page rank and page reputation will be to domain1 and not your site.

Thanks Mike - I was hoping that by having the keywords in the domain name of a redirect site, more people might ultimately find my main site. So that's not the case?

Stuart

It wont rank better, but you may get a higher CTR from the search engine results page (serps) because they may think that its related to their search.

@paulgl Maybe so, but that's not the discussion. The topic is does the hyphen in a domain name help or your ranking. The answer is no, but you may achieve a higher CTR in the SERP.