In this example I'd go with the second

Hi, Google considers hyphen as a space to differentiate the words. It does not make much difference to search engines whether there is a hyphen or not.
However, I suggest you name your site keeping the user in mind because ultimately it is the customer who will bring the traffic.
The URL should be user-friendly & should be easy to remember.

I agree with Johan that the second is probably best if you plan on your potential visitors having to type in your web address. Search engines don't care. Either of those addresses can be optimized for the engines. Either can be used with the same anchor text.

We have one website in the brain injury niche where we used brain-injury-online simply to make it easier reading for people who might have cognitive difficulties with braininjuryonline.

All is much clearer now Thanks for the reply and have a very happy Christmas

Kevin

Kevin this is actually a debated issue over what domains are better, ones with hyphens or without? I have used ones with hyphens and have had good results with search engines. Many people believe that it makes it easier for search engines to pick up those words seperated by the hyphen. Other people don't believe that at all. Coming from the consumer they would probably end up typing in the second one forgetting the hyphen and unless you owned the other domain name as well you could be bringing traffic to someone else. My suggestion is take both domains. Then figure it out later on what one to mainly use. I think hyphens help but others will have a seperate opinion on that. Anyone else have anymore comments on this?

Happy Holidays everyone,

Jamie