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Via Web Templates Blog:
Hyphens have been used with interesting variations - and interesting results as far as SEO is concerned. The best domain name needs to have relevancy in it’s keywords but free of name trademark problems with other websites. It should also be shorter and easier to remeber if possible. Ideally seven characters or less is what you want.
Let’s say you just created a business that you want to name FrozenSeaFoods.com, but you see that name is taken. Should you use a hyphen, as such: Frozen-SeaFoods.com or should you make major name changes?
Well, your best choice is to take a name with no hyphen in it. But there are some exceptions to this situation. Here are some situations when a hyphen could be a good choice. Domain URLs with a hyphen can be a good idea if you need particular words in your domain but all domains without hyphens are bought.
The only ways I would use hyphens are:
1. Complimentary sites specifically for SEO purposes
2. In case my brand has two words or more, it can’t hurt to compliment it by owning the hyphen version as well, but not a must.
In which other cases would you use hyphens in domain names?
I am not a proponent of using a hyphenated domain name as the primary domain name for a Web site, or for email, as I have found people will forget the hyphens. If a domain name without hyphens is already taken, then it makes no sense to get the hyphenated one, as more than likely type-in traffic will go to the name without hyphens.
That being said, having a hyphenated name as an alternate name is not a bad idea. For the sake of protecting the brand, I would also get the names.
I recently wrote on observations I made in Germany on hyphenated names - http://www.thehotiron.com/index.php/site/comments/observations_of_german_domain_names/ - where hyphens are popular. So the primary market and audience for the domain name should also be considered.
mp/m
My #1 performing site is a two word .net with a dash. It was a decision I made without thinking too much about it 6 years ago. To this day it is my #1 performing site (out earns another similar site where I own the generic .com ), strictly because of SEO (which has nothing to do with the dash imo). Luckily, I realized the error of my ways and bought the .net without the dash about 2 years later for defensive purposes. Should have ponied up for the .com, of course but hey…
Can you build a business with a dash domain? Absolutely.
Will it hurt the resale value of your business? Absolutely.
Will it make things confusing for your business? Definitely (”no green dash widgets dot com”.
If you are starting today should you build and brand on a dash? No.
Having a domain with a dash is about as valuable as having a non-.com extension. So, joes-diner.com is about as valuable as joesdiner.net etc.
I would always choose the .com obviously because the hypen name with loose traffic to the .com and a hyphenated name is hard to say over the phone and the few times I heard someone tell me their hyphenated domain over the phone, I immediately thought less of their site.
Maybe in some cases it does make sense to use hyphens for names like keyword-domains.com and wireless-services.com in order to break up two matching letters.
There is some who might argue that the dash breaks up words which is good for seo.
All domains should be intuitive to users in their target markets. That is what the whole game is about. In Russian, it is very common to have words linked with hyphens. They don’t really make much sense without the hyphens, so it is presumably intuitive to type the domain name with the hyphen. Build your business on one without the hyphen and you are going to be at the same disadvantage as US names with the hyphen where the hyphen is not intuitive.
I didn’t think there’s much in it. Sometimes it looks more professional to not have a hyphen but sometimes the lack of hyphen can make a domain name ambiguous (see http://www.domainnamesoup.com/forum/funny-domain-names-t10.html).
From an SEO point of view, there is no difference.
Is it true that from an SEO standpoint it makes no difference. The top SEO books say that a dash is better for SEO. The books on eBook promotions also suggest that a dash is better for the search engines. Yes saying the name over the phone is hard and yes you want the version without dashes but so much informatio points to dashes being a good thing. However, you don’t see many dashes in the search results.