Hyphens & Numbers within domains for search engines

still confused after 10 hours of reading...

[aris1970]

Hello All,

I am developing a new website about "Blue Widgets" and thankfully I have found the domain BlueWidgetsWorld.com available for registration.

Furthermore I intend to develop several more domains that will be geographically targeted and I am thinking of registering the domains like:

- BlueWidgets4Greece.com
- BlueWidgets4Spain.com etc.

I have spent 10 hours looking for information (!) about using hyphens and numbers on domains and I am still confused about the user's experiences.

Most of users consider usage of numbers that is not considered as a separator by search engines and BlueWidgets.com less valued than Blue-Widgets.com. Some others believe this is not true, at least anymore.

I would appreciate to have your comments on the above issues and share your valuable experiences.

Thank you,
Aris

[tedster]

The hyphen question gets discussed here a lot. You can find many relevant threads with a Google search [google.com]

The use of numbers is not so frequently brought up - I also look forward to hearing about others experiences.

[aris1970]

Hi All again! :)

I am really surprised as I thought that the use of numbers in domains could be an important issue in this forum. Anyway, I would appreciate if anyone (specially tedster) could provide some feedback or relative previous threads (I didnt find anything although I searched here).

Does anyone know whether a number can be a separator of 2 words (i.e. keyworda4keywordb.com) instead of using a hyphen?

Is it beneficial or neutral in terms of search engines?

Any more ideas?

[Longhaired Genius]

Numbers for words in domain names is a very important issue. There's no discussion of it because there seems to be almost complete consensus: it's a bad idea. Just think of the problem you will have telling someone your web address... "That's four the number four not for F. O. R." etc etc.

[tedster]

If you are only concerned with search engines:

1. keywords within the domain give only a minimal boost
2. where they do get "some" boost, the hyphen helps

However, all the other problems thay come with hyphens outweigh the slim booston search engines, unless you are ONLY looking for search engine traffic.

There are entire networks of domains based around a "clever" use of numbers. The search engine could care less - if someone searches on a numeral (!) they can get a boost, I suppose.

But think about any well-known acronym that does use a numeral - really common stuff like b2c. You rarely see anything that looks like a thriving website on such a domain.

In short, numerals don't work, and hyphens, although slightly better, still take a booby prize.

I didnt find anything although I searched here

Did you click on the link I included in my first post? You should get Google results that are all from WebmasterWorld.

[aris1970]

Thanks for your feedback.

Tedster, I certainly visited the URL you posted but unfortunately it was only for hyphenated domains and not for... numbers.

>>But think about any well-known acronym that does use a numeral - really common stuff like b2c. You rarely see anything that looks like a thriving website on such a domain.>>

Well, I must say that I am a "lover" of numbers as my website is ranked #3 among 9,500,000 results for a very competitive business keyword. I started with XXXX2day.com (I didnt find any other domain available!) and six months later I was soooo lucky to register also the XXXXtoday.com (the owner didnt renew it!).

I am still the XXXX2day.com as my main domain (the full one is redirected) and I am very satisfied for the branding potential it gave.

Regarding the number in a domain, I am speaking for a domain like XXXX4YYYYY.com while registering ALSO the XXXXforYYY.com (so there is no problem with spelling).

The problem is that I am in a dilemma between the above scenario and another one, longer but with keywords separated by hyphens (plz note that the same domain without hyphens will be registered too!).

I am interested in your experiences with numbers (they havent hurt me until now!) but it's a new project and I want to stay updated with the current trends in this field.

Thanks!