Domain names-hyphenated-or not?

[Geoff]

Hi,
I am a small business owner and will be getting a new .com website for a new product.
I have had conflicting advice from different 'experts' on whether or not the domain name, which will be descriptive and contain some keywords, should have these words hyphenated.
One expert says having the hyphens in enables search engines to separate out and identify the induividual words and another says hyphens are not user friendly.
So should it be www.hyphenated-name.com or www.nonhyphenatedname.com?
Thanks
Geoff

[dlstickler]

You are astute to notice that in any case, whether an "expert" opinion or not it is still just an opinion.

Naturally, I have an opinion as well. IMO if you want a domain name that will be easy for people to remember and for the search engines to rank, make sure it is not some acronym. In other words, do not use some nonhyphenatedname.com. Search Engines do recognize the terms between hyphens.

You definitely need to make sure that your domain name is going to be exactly what-you-are-selling.com and if you can fit it in where-you-are-selling.com. Obviously you do not want it to be too long unless it is completely memorable to your prospective customers.

Remember, you are going to be using your website to do more then just display products. You are using it to brand yourself. To give your prospective customers something to remember you by and a reason to remember to buy from you.

If you want any more ideas about this issue or any other involving search engine and visitor friendliness, just write me.

[!!_Azam.biz]

I always prefer non-hyphenated domain names, as do most online businesses. If you are in a quandry and uncertain, you could buy both. Domain names are so cheap nowadays.

Good luck :)

[eSolutionsWork]

Google (at least) recognises hyphenated-domain.com and underlined_domain.com

[lighttech]

Google is also able to seperate the words in a nonhyphenated domain names. My recommendation is short and to the point. Something that a customer can remember. We-sell-this-product.com is bad. theprod.com is good. - Ceiling Fans (http://www.rlights.com)

[jbsmith]

Preferred approach should be non-hyphenated UNLESS you see so much
value in a particular domain name for which the non-hyphentated version
is already taken, that you go with hyphenated to secure it.

Hmmm. How many times can you include the word hyphenated in YOUR response :-)

Jeff

[allonline]

Hi this is my second attempt at this post for some reason when i host submit the forum decided i wasnt logged or on a thread. so here goes, it was a long post as well.

Depends on what you website is about and how you want to market it and get traffic. Are you building a brand or a niche?

for a brand then a short name no hyphen may be better.
for a niche with search engine and links from other sites and email advertising then hyphens may be better.

Search engines do see then as different things and will bring traffic to your site differently.

I cant find the article i originally read but my own results using hyphens with hyphens in the keyword phrase traffic pages have out performed the underscore or no hyphen pages by 50% mainly because i done advertise as such and nearly all my traffic is from search engines. In some cases the traffic doubled once i renamed all pages.

bigbluewidget WILL be seen differently then big_blue_widget but similar to big-blue-widget so it depends on your site. trying to say a long url with hyphens verbally iis difficult and many people forget the hyphen or underscore. The underscore in a link may dis-appear on a page meaning a link may be seen as www.big blue widget.com to a visitor. Google treats the underscore differently from a hyphen meaning someone searching for big blue widget may find both both types but big widget will also show up the page or blue widget. Unless the search is exactly big blue widget the underscore one may only show then.

Heres a similar article but not the one i originally read which was more comprehensive in searching for pages with or without hyphens or underscores.

http://www.prweaver.com/blog/2004/08/26/2-hyphen-and-underscore

Also this thread explains perhaps why.
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=113422
To quote
The difference is that Google parses an underscore as an alphanumeric character, i.e, it sees _ the same as it sees e or 4 so it doesn't break apart domain_name into domain name.

The - is a delimiter (to Google) and domain-name would be "seen" as domain name. I would think doman+name would be treated the same- as a delimiter.

Hope this helps
Rob
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http://www.a-web-host.com

[allonline]

Hi,

Was just surfing some internet marketing sites and reading articles when i spotted this link on this very question, i think it was the original article i read on another site so i thought it might be worth posting this one as well.

Again the question of whether to use hyphens or underscores in domain pages links is answered and reflects my experience as well. As to using them in the actual domain name well again i would say they depends on what your site is about and how you expect or want to get traffic. Whatever you choose dont use underscores as this seems to be the worse option for many search engines.

Heres the link.
http://www.marketingfind.com/articles/do_dashes_or_underscores_goose_google_rankings_mor e.html

Regards

Rob
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http://www.a-web-host.com

[SiteTutor]

The days when first page results were full of hyphenated domain names are over. What counts now is brandability. Search engines detect keyterms without the hyphens and I would not waste my time and energy with any other domain names than the one you want to stick with. The last thing you want is chancing having a site labelled as a doorway or mirror page.

Mike

[buildyourownapp]

I agree with SiteTutor on that one. Pick a domain and stick with it, without hyphens if at all possible. Most people when typing in URL's will default to a, pardon the use of a hyphen here, non-hyphenated domain name, unless the case of your company branding being a household word, i.e.; Coke, Coca Cola, then these rules generally don't apply.

[MuddyFox]

There are a number of contributors to a particular site's PR (Page Ranking) in search engines. Dashes or underscores do not affect your PR in any way.

If I were you I'd pay more attention to keywords, backlinks, etc and worry less about a dash or two.

Will it be easier for people to remember your sites name if it's hyphenated?

By the way, Allonline... Did you notice that in the test conducted, they failed to search for affordablesearchengineplacement - and that's what we're really discussing here - isn't it? The diff between affordablesearchengineplacement.com and affordable-search-engine-placement.com

A search for affordablesearchengineplacement - returns 1 web-site... you guessed it!

www.affordablesearchengineplacement.com/
Similar pages

We use dashes in our domain name (www.e-z-quote.net) and we're climbing the PR ladder simply because we offer a good service, and people use us and backlink to us...

So in summary - use dashes, don't use dashes, it's up to you. It won't affect your site's PR...

[DaisyDicor]

It is not the content in your website or the domain name of your website. What you need to focus on is on the promotion of your website. If you take the opinion of all th experts, then you will end up confused rather than in business.
Concentrate on your customers, your associates and your business and see the difference in your business.

Take the challenges and become successful in internet business (http://onlinemoneyinfo.biz) from the winning ideas.