hyphenated or not?

client wants it, but it makes me nervous

[Craig_F]

Client wants: www.Widgets-Accessories-Shop.com

But, www.WidgetsAccessoriesShop.com is also available.

Which one should he get? I've never bothered with hyphenated because it always seemed a little spammy to me.

Also important I guess is that his product pages will also be hyphenated. So, if we go his way we will end up with something like:

www.Widgets-Accessories-Shop.com/blue-discount-widget.htm

Isn't that a bit much? Do I need to worry about it?

[encyclo]

Definitely buy both, and use a 301 redirect to the one you (or your client) choose as the primary domain name. That covers all options!

[kwasher]

Get both. Use the hypenated. Thats only my opinion.

Hypehnated domains have meaning to search engines like google (it can pick up on the individual words), where non hypenated are not.

[Craig_F]

Sorry, I didn't mean I wouldn't get both I will certainly do that. I also know the benefits of the hyphens, I'm just concerned that if we use the hyphenated version the urls start to look spammy. Should I worry about that? Won't this eventually be some sort of red flag for the engines?

[kwasher]

I've never bothered with hyphenated because it always seemed a little spammy to me

I understand.

Do I need to worry about it?

Worry isn't healthy.

If you are providing relevant results... search engines live on relevant results.

I'm not sure that a search engine penalizing everyone in the world who has a hypen or two in their names would truly offer comprehensive relevant results.

But, of course, they CAN do pretty much what they want... so maybe a SEO pro here has a definitive answer. (My field is more domain names than SEO)

[pageoneresults]

Hyphenated domains are not real user friendly and they are very difficult to brand. Ever try reading a hyphenated domain to a client over the phone?

These days with Google stemming, hyphenated domains may soon become a dinosaur. They worked for a little while and still do in some instances. The biggest issue here is brandability.

My personal preference is no hyphens in the domain name. When I'm searching, I normally tend to skip the hyphenated domains because 8 out of 10 times it is going to be a resource that has little to no value for me. The more hyphens there are, the less value the resource seems to have.

Also, there has been a lot of mumbling around here concerning too many hyphens in the domain name. If the SEs wanted to clean up their indexes, the first thing they could do would be to look for all domains that contain three or more hyphens. That would clean up a few million pages. ;)

One hyphen seems okay. Two hyphens are questionable. Three hyphens and you've crossed into the gray area.

[Craig_F]

I normally tend to skip the hyphenated domains because 8 out of 10 times it is going to be a resource that has little to no value for me

Thanks for that one. I do that myself and I wasn't even considering that factor.

[kwasher]

I normally tend to skip the hyphenated domains because 8 out of 10 times it is going to be a resource that has little to no value for me.

I don't see how you can say that. You cant judge the content of a website based on whether it has a hypen in the domain or not.

I own one particular hypenated domain that is spelt with hypens, everywhere; in the dictionary, newspapers, magazines, etc... It is never spelt without the hyphens.

Look up a non hypenated domain in google and then look up one that is hypenated. The hypenated one has its keywords underlined, the non-hypenated one does not.

[pageoneresults]

You cant judge the content of a website based on whether it has a hypen in the domain or not.

I didn't say hyphen. All references I made were specific to multiple hyphens.

And yes, after surfing for years and working in this industry I can honestly judge the content of a website on domain alone. Two, three and four hypens in a domain and I'm almost certain that it would have little value to me or the index that it resides in.

Look up a non hypenated domain in google and then look up one that is hypenated. The hypenated one has its keywords underlined, the non-hypenated one does not.

Hmmm, the few searches I just did using a two word phrase bolded both terms in the non-hyphenated version of the domain. In fact, I could not find the hyphenated version in the first 30 results. Speaking of which, have you noticed less and less hyphenated domains filling up the Google SERPs these days? ;)

[Webwork]

Don't worry about the hyphen on the phone. If they can get past http and forward slash forward slash, then plug in the www and not forget the dot they can handle the few extra words needed to say "there's a hyphen between blue and widgets".

Oh, yeah, and don't forget another dot and then a com.

[georgeek]

This is an endless debate but it is worth noting that the hyphen is de facto a 27th letter of the alphabet.

There over 100,000 words in English which are spelt with a hyphen. Some of them like mother-in-law have two and I expect there are examples of three.

This is why the hyphen was allowed in domain names in the first place it was not just a happy accident.

Within the rules you can have any domain name you like and for a search engine to start making judgements based on the number of hyphens or any other legitimate character would be a dangerous path to follow.

Given a choice between:

www.Widgets-Accessories-Shop.com

www.WidgetsAccessoriesShop.com

I personally would go for the hyphenated version every time simply on aesthetic grounds never mind any perceived advantage in SEO.

[yowza]

I have a related question. I sale widgets with four digits in each of the product id's. Each product id is in the url on its given page. Could this possibly be considered spam? The domain name has no hyphens in it.

[robert adams]

to me it is just common sense that hyphenated domain names would do better in the search engines.

there is no such word as bluewidgetsales but there are the words blue and widget and sales.
no one looking for blue widgets is going to type bluewidgetsales into the search engine but they will type in blue widget and maybe sales.
based solely on the domain name not content, the domain name with the hyphens will come up before the one without will.

just my opinion ,
robert

[Leosghost]

I go with george geek....I've got a bunch of Domains with hyphens in them both as English and French ( French has a huge number of hyphenated phrases that WILL ALWAYS be written with the hypens by French surfers ...otherwise anyone looking over their shoulders would sneer at them 'cos they made a "faute d'orthographe" ....and past generations would spin in their graves causing French cemetaries to burst into flame ...( sort of like "Poltergeist" )...
Seriously tho .....The only way to be sure of your name staying your name is to register the "com" "net" "org" ( yes I Know that you ought to be a charity or somesuch to use DOT ORG..but I just got a bunch of emails from a guy shilling for Larry Flint who uses a DOT ORG so who is "policing" that one these days ..? )...better safe than sorry ...PLUS the plurals and the hyphenated versions ....After all it's gonna cost you what 30$ per year even at retail rates ..Couple of years back that was the cost of one name for one year!....
Where I do think that it's got silly is the DOT BIZ and DOT INFO ..strikes me as a "sop" to those with no imagination ...why not DOT ME while we are about it..
After the original com, net and orgs ..and the country or trade blocks ( such as the proposed EU etc )...I really can't see the relevance of the rest and am personally put off by any site which is a DOT BIZ or DOT INFO ....
snipped
From what I can see "biz" and "info" are mainly that anyway ....

[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 6:43 pm (utc) on May 5, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed reference to "mature" sites [/edit]