Here's wht I found so far:
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Pros
First it is more readable to readers (compare: youarefine vs you-are-fine).
Second search engine likes "word1-word2" more than "word1word2", although I believe it's going to be of little significance (explanation below). Anyway you may wish to improve as much as possible, so you may wish to consider it.
Google (so do MSN, Yahoo) like the following naming system:
ƒÞPlus (+): hxxp://www.domain.com/word1+word2.htm (fake URL)
ƒÞHyphen (-): hxxp://www.domain.com/word1-word2.htm (fake URL)
Google (so do MSN, Yahoo) don't like the following naming system:
ƒÞNo separator: hxxp://www.domain.com/word1word2.htm (fake URL)
ƒÞUnderscore "_": hxxp://www.domain.com/word1_word2.htm (fake URL)
For the reasoning and details, see the following:
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Search engines give a little weight to keywords found in domain names and URLs. Because URLs and domains do not allow spaces, one must use either underscores or hyphens as word separators (or not use any separators at all).
Why no underscores?
Google does not treat underscores as word separators. That's why Google won't consider keyword1_keyword2 as matches to keyword1 and keyword2. Obviously, it is better to use hyphens in your URLs and domains.
What to do if I have used underscores already?
If you have already used underscores, don't change your page names to hyphens. The weight given to matches in URLs and domains is not significant enough to be worth the time of waiting that search engines need to recrawl and reindex the changed URLs. You should consider using hyphens for the sites and pages that you are going to make in the future.
Another benefit of using hyphens
There's another benefit of using hyphens in the domain names. Many directories link to sites using their domain names as the anchor text. In this case, hyphens will help a lot, because Google will treat them as anchor text matches. <snip source credit / domain name as "text link" is common knowledge>
Problems of using hyphens
People may forget the hyphen and type "word1word2.com" as it is the traditional way of typing 2 words. Also it may be a bit harder for someone to spell out the whole URL over phone. Finally the hyphened URL isn't worth as much as non-hyphened URL if you resell your domain name.
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Wht do you think?
Anything to add?
[edited by: Webwork at 2:52 am (utc) on Sep. 24, 2005]
[edit reason] Tidying up just a little. Nice work. [/edit]
"Saying it on the phone" is largely a non-issue, for a variety of reasons. Saying it on radio announcements is a different matter. The worst fate suffered is traffic that bounces a bit before touching down. Hardly a horror when compared to how much traffic bounces (fails to arrive) when search engines update their algos and filters. ;)
OBTW - Welcome to the Domain Forum Wai_Wai. Nice initial contribution. I look forward to more. ;)
I think so.
How hard is it to say the URL is "N-O-Dash-I-P"? The word dash is not hard to understand, right?
However I often hear people claim this as a disadvantage. Personally I don't tihnk it is.
Saying it on radio announcements is a different matter.
What's the difference?
Care to explain?
The worst fate suffered is traffic that bounces a bit before touching down. Hardly a horror when compared to how much traffic bounces (fails to arrive) when search engines update their algos and filters.
What do you mean?
Do you mean since I need to type more more "dash", it has a bit heavier traffic, and this may lead to some insignificant problems?
Finally thanks for your greetings, and fixing my ugly post :P
I think so.
How hard is it to say the URL is "N-O-Dash-I-P"? The word dash is not hard to understand, right?
However I often hear people claim this as a disadvantage. Personally I don't tihnk it is.
Depends on how often you plan to say it. If I have to say "dash" more than 10 times per day, that sounds like way too much for me.
If I think I'll be saying it a lot, I'll even reg a name with no dashes that's easy to understand - only for the purpose of forwarding to the real domain.
In file names, I've never liked underscores. They look like spaces to some people.
Dashed domains are fine, but I always want the undashed version too so I'm not leaking traffic.
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I think we are not going to say much (maybe just 1 or 2). Otherwise your name should be soooooo long and very hard to remember even for the unhyphenated URL.
