Domain better with or without the dash?

[MoZarko]

Hello all,

I'm going to get a new domain and am wondering if it might be better with the searchengines if I place a - between the words of my domain. Example: billsbells.com or bills-bells.com
Appreciate your thoughts...

[Webwork]

The definitive answer is yes, no and maybe.

Truly.

Some believe that SEs are better able to parse the words of a multiword domain with the benefit of the hyphen. Yet, given the limits of the dictionary and the power of computers it's not a leap to assume SEs do a pretty good job of parsing multiword non-hyphenated domains.

Hedge your bet and register both ;-P

[JeremyL]

If this is for an affiliate type site or something that has no use other then to rank well in the se's then yet use the dash.

If this is a site you plan on building up and want repeat visitors, then no, branding is key there.

[Webwork]

I repectfully disagree. This 'hyphens are bad for branding' urban legend really needs to die . . . but it won't.

There's more than a few very nice 2 word phrase domains that I own and plan to develop for which I am not bothered in the least that I 'only' hold the hyphenated version. If you saw them you'd like get over the issue of the hyphen rather quickly. A hyphen as an impediment to brand is at most a marginal fiction, and at worst a very slight negative amongst a galaxy of variables to consider. Some major 'brands' rely on domains with a hyphen and don't appear to suffer for it. Take for example the World Tourism Organziation. It's the real thing. It's real big. It's government funded. And it's found at [World-Tourism.org...]

There's many other examples of world class organizations that live with hyphens. Don't believe everything you read about "Oh, it's sooooo much trouble to explain that there's a hyphen in the web address . . ." Ya. The explanation about 'there's a hyphen' is so much harder to follow on the phone than the part about 'the address is http colon forward slash forward slash w w w period .....'

Frankly, I'd be more than happy if a few hundred people sold me their troublesome, hard to manage and understand hyphenated domains. I'd brand the heck out of them and never look back. If anyone couldn't follow the part about the hyphen I wouldn't lose any sleep.

I wonder how tough it is to live at [Webmaster-World.com...]

[buckworks]

In most cases I'd prefer the non-hyphenated version for branding, but I'd also want to control the hyphenated version, plus predictable misspellings, .net, .org, my country's TLD, etc. Making sure that such variants are under your control is cheap insurance to protect the reputation and branding of your main domain name.

I wouldn't hesitate to use the hyphenated version of a domain if I also controlled the non-hyphenated version, but if it were in the hands of a competitor I'd probably look for something else.

It's interesting to note that World-Tourism.org doesn't resolve properly if you omit the www. bit. WorldTourism.org is for sale, likely for a king's ransom.

[JeremyL]

It's not a legend, just how it is. Sure you can brand World-Tourism.org all day long and have it be a success. But at the same time how many people are you loosing because thier fring told them to visit the World Tourism site and they visited WorldTourism.org. Can a hyphenated domain work? Yes. Will you loose word of mouth referals because of it? Yes.

Also we are taling about two word hypen domains. When doing a search on a SE I even go as far to say I NEVER click on search results where the domain is 3 word hyphens or more. 99% of the time they are pur spam or pure affiliate sites.

[Webwork]

My premise isn't 'grab they hyphenated version, forget the non-hyphenated one'. My premise is given a choice between a spot on 2 word industry name domain with a hyphen and MyWidgetWidget.com, what's you solution? If your business is internet marketing, and InternetMarketing.TLD is registered and can't be bought for under $XXX,XXX.XX, but you can acquire Internet-Marketing.TLD without great pain, do you choose the hyphenated version or do you go with myinternetmarketingbusiness.com because it has no hyphen and that resolves the issue for you?

This approach is best limited to only the most desirable of 2 word generic industry name domains.

[Macguru]

We always register both. We permanently redirect examplewebsite.com to example-website.com. Hyphenated domain names reads better on screen and print, and non hyphenated one are good for radio or phone.

[rfgdxm1]

>Yet, given the limits of the dictionary and the power of computers it's not a leap to assume SEs do a pretty good job of parsing multiword non-hyphenated domains.

I see no evidence they even try to parse domain names. And, good reason why they shouldn't even try. This could lead to this site's domain being parsed as web-master-world, and is about Brett's attempt to achieve planetary domination via the web. ;)

[jk3210]

...and the ratio of visitors from search engines compared to the number of people we will EVER IN OUR LIVES give our urls to over the phone would be...?

[Macguru]

Hi jk3210,

Registering a domain name is less than 10 $ a year. Enven if you have only one employee dealing with it over the phone, considering the lost type-ins and any verbal advertising, and finally considering not ever having to deal with someone who 'stole' your domain name and put a dash in the middle of it, I think this is money well invested.

It's a no brainer, just use both.