Non hyphenated vs hypenated names

[Buster42]

I am thinking of registering a name that is 4 words long.

apple, orange, banana, pear.

I'm thinking of registering appleorangebananapear.com AND apple-orange-banana-pear.com.

Q. Do people prefer a name with or without hyphens?

[BillyS]

>>not if it is just one hyphen; but once you start having 3 or 4, then the domain becomes clearly suspect, because there are very few times where you'd want a long domain like that if you are not trying to spam the URL.

Matt says no (I just read it too), do you have some inside information to the contrary?

[ashear]

If you want someone to be able to return to the site, you would be better off using a simple catchy clean name. Like Fandango, as a marketer I love that one.

[Kufu]

I've read on Matt's blog on many occasions where he points out domains which have multiple hyphens, as spam sites.

Please keep in mind that I am not saying having a single hyphen is bad. Two is probably ok too, but once the domain has three or more hyphens then it would at least be suspect in my book. I personally would not click on a link which has a multiple-hyphen TLD. So even if the search engines don't see 3 or 4 hyphens as a problem, why risk not getting someone's click?

I work for an SEO company, and do optimizations. My experience has been that hyphenated domains don't do as well. We don't even accept sites with more than 2 hyphens. 99% of the time the hyphens are there for keyword spamming.

[hannamyluv]

I'll point out a benifit of a hyphanated name. If you plan on doing a significant amount of PPC advertising with the domain, I would think about at least getting the hyphanated name for the sake of putting it in your ad. Hyphanated names are much easier to read, just not to remember or type. When it comes to PPC ads, your domain is as much of your ad as the rest, so an easier to read domain that is on topic for the kws you are advertising on is to your advantage.

[jtara]

Also, if the name is hyphenated, the search engines give brownie points for the individual words in calculating rank. If it is all mashed together in one compound word then it is seen as one long word that appears on your page but no where else on the internet - the title of the non-hyphenated version would bear less fruit.

Does anyone know which (if any) search engines are able to find individual words within a compound word in a domain name?

I'm guessing that Google might. The reason I say this is that Adwords recently started highlighting keywords within domain names. (They previously highlighted keywords only within ad copy.)

Now, there is no connection between Adwords and organic search results, but... If they do it in one place, they could do it in the other. And there must be some thought at Google that (non-hyphenated) keywords within a domain name are relevant.

[Kufu]

Google has been 'bolding' keywords in domains for a long time. They can parse the words in a domain very nicely. Just do a search for a keyword and look in the results for domains with the keywords in there; you'll notice that they are bolded.

[Agzl]

People would prefer hyphens as <long website names may be easier to remember when they are hyphenated.>.

[edited by: Webwork at 8:06 pm (utc) on Mar. 8, 2006]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[Kufu]

Why is a hyphenated domain easier to remember? I don't get it. It uses the same words but with hyphens separating them. Having hyphens improves memory? :)

[walkman]

>> We don’t use hyphens as a spam signal.

for now, or at least not algorithmically. Do you honestly think that a G engineer will treat keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4.com the same way as a normal domain if someone reports you, or if you email to see if a penalty exists?

[Kufu]

walkman,

Thank you! :)

[thing3b]

I agree with the comments that domain names should not have more than one hyphen. One thing that you should be really carefull about is how the domain sounds if you are telling it to someone.

Think of a mythical domain name of "Last-Attempt.zc". Now your domain sounds like "LastDashAttempt.zc".

Also I think that you should strive to keep your domain under 30 characters, and even shorter if you use hyphenated names.

Now without looking back at your first post, can you remember if your example was:

AppleBananaOrangePear
Apple-Pear-Banana-Orange
Apple-Orange-Banana-Peach
AppleOrangeBananaPeach
AppleOrangeBananaPear
AppleOrangeLemonPeach

If you do not care about users being able to remember your domain at all, you can get away with only using an IP address. The whole idea of a domain is to save users from typing out a 12 digit number. Keep that in mind.

[buckworks]

where he points out domains which have multiple hyphens, as spam sites

But it's not the hyphen that makes them spammy, it's other stuff they're doing.

[Kirby]

Do you honestly think that a G engineer will treat keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4.com the same way as a normal domain if someone reports you, or if you email to see if a penalty exists?

Yes.

As Buckworks, said, its not the hyphen that makes something spammy. If I just gave you an IP address for a site rather than the domain name and you cant find anything wrong with it, then adding a hyphen or two or even three doesnt change the content.

>someone reports you

For what? For the use of hyphens? My sites are clean, so I have it. FWIW, I have domains that hold Fed Trademarks, as well as domains that are keywordkeyword.com and kw-kw-kw.com (something like red-texas-widgets.com)and they do fine.

[Kufu]

But it's not the hyphen that makes them spammy, it's other stuff they're doing.

That may be true, but overly hyphenated domains tend to have 'spammy' sites associated with them.

Kirby,

Of course there are exceptions, but generally new domains that are hyphenated tend to have spammy sites.

I can't remember one hyphenated website that I personally use. And I am constantly online, for work as well as leisure.

[Rollo]

Four words is way too much.

1) Domain names have little value anymore in SERPS and I assume if you're trying to string together 4 keywords this is what you would be going for.

2) All branding possibilites go right out the window. Imagine saying... yes, you can find us online at "apple dash orange dash banana dash pear dot com" ugh.

3) Long domains with lots of dashes look like fly by night spam.

Really, you should think of a short memorable name and go with it. It's all about the content, not the keywords in your domain.

[Ove]

This is an very old post by Toolman, but it still working in some ways,
[webmasterworld.com...]

Some of us call hyphens domain for spam, but when its working in the search engines is it still spam? I think we should let the search engines to decide that.

Man i miss that guy.

/Ove

[bigcrags]

From a rankings point of view, surely it has got to come down to the content of the site. Great content on a multi-word hyphenated domain will probably do better than rubbish content on a short domain.
And if your content is great, people will link to you no matter what your domain name is.

[traffik daddy]

Personally I would go for a unique brand name if of course you are running an ecommerce shop, unique branded names stick out in peoples minds better and you are guarenteed top for your brand name on a repeat customer point of view. Providing they are using the search engines to try and find you.

If you have a 4 keyword scrunched up hard to remember domain name then they may just give up and move on to the next site if they can't remember you, or get the 4 keywords jumbled up in your domain name then they will never find you, especially without the hyphons. If you have a unique easy to remember branded domain name then they will find you easy in the search engines, providing of course that they don't have alzheimer's :)

To me stuffing keywords into a domain looks spammy. Also notice that in most of the bigger industries (of what I have seen so far anyway) branded names come out on top, especially in my sector. Of course it is okay to get a keyword in there (just one with a little twist - people tend to do keyword4u or keyword2u.com, etc), but too many keywords doesn't quite cut it for me.

Overall though, my opinion is without the hyphons.

TD

[mistah]

There was a funny email doing the rounds a few months ago pointing out some tragic mistakes that people have made with unhyphenated domains. E.g. mole-station.? would be better than molestation.? The point I am making is that if you go for unhyphenated, make sure that it can't be read in more than one way. I recall that a website from a company called Pen Island also suffered from the same problem - a hyphenated domain would have been a much better choice.

Having said that, in most cases I prefer unhyphenated domains. They look less spammy and are easier to communicate to people. Also it's surprising how many people are unsure about whether to use a hyphen or an underscore.

[roseplant]

I know this thread is really getting huge, but I'd like to give you my two cents from personal experience.

About 3 years ago I registered a 3 word hyphenated domain in the style: apple-orange-net.com. Apple and orange being two targeted keywords. This was a commercial website in the travel industry, so marketing for Adsense, etc was not an objective.

While I was quite happy with the search engine performance of the domain, when it came to 'real-world marketing' things got sticky. Radio ads for example. Not so pretty. "... visit apple HYPHEN orange HYPHEN ..."

Even passing the domain name along to friends in conversation was cumbersome "I just build a new website apple HYPHEN orange HYPHEN ...". Get the picture?

So in short if your target is:

Adsense and Internet-only presence: Go for keywords
Commercial website/Real world marketing is an issue: Stay well away from keywords

[simetau]

I have a hyphenated four word domain name that is on the first page of Google against 39,900,000 results and it pays the bills so it can be done but I am sure that it would be in the same position with a non hypenated domain and I would probably get more repeat visitors because no one can remember my domain and few want to type that much lol

simetau

[swa66]

Personally I think in general speaking 4 keywords is a lot to stuff in a domainname.

Hypens or no hypens: think what the user, not what the search engine will see. Search engines eventually follow what their visitors what.

But it all depends on the actualy words.

e.g. (all fictional)

- one-two-tree-four
- I-am-very-bored
- seo-services-are-bad
- red-ones-go-fasta

but just stuffing things in and hoping people recognize/remember it on their own: will not work for the people and soon or later the search engines will reflect that as well.

[imacartoon]

Hi All.

<snip - please, no self-promotion>.

I want to clarify a few things here regarding hyphenated domains. I never said that a hyphenated domain would result in a spam penalty.

What I said was a keyword focused hyphenated domain would not rank well in Google.

Read what Matt Cutts says in his blog very carefully:

We don’t use hyphens as a spam signal.

Could it be that your domain is getting caught in a "keyword stuffing" filter?

Look at the SERP's and see what's there. Not very many keyword focussed domains are there?

Fair or not, this is what is happening. I am personally rebuilding on non-hyphenated domains.

[edited by: Webwork at 12:14 pm (utc) on Mar. 15, 2006]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]

[old_expat]

"Look at the SERP's and see what's there. Not very many keyword focussed domains are there?"

Yep, most of page 1 on Google ..in my travel sector. For the 2 word keyphrase that I use as a test, 7 of the top 10 (7 of first 7) have one or both of the keywords in the domain name.

[imacartoon]

expat - how many hyphens in the domain on the SERP's you see?

In every keyword I am chasing down I don't see any hyphenated domains.

[old_expat]

imacartoon,

I answered your post

"Could it be that your domain is getting caught in a "keyword stuffing" filter?

Look at the SERP's and see what's there. Not very many keyword focussed domains are there?"

It look(s/ed) to me as if you were talking of 2 different issues.

1 - Hyphenated domains
2 - Keywords stuffed domains

While the comments I answered may have been taken out of the context of your *entire post*, it was not taken out of the context of your comment.

The info I provided is based on *".. keyword focussed domains .."*

[old_expat]

"In every keyword I am chasing down I don't see any hyphenated domains."

*Any?*

Try "hotels" .. pretty competitive I would guess.

916,000,000 hits .. #2 is hyphenated

- "hotels in Europe", 88,200,000 hits, 3 of 10 are hyphenated AND have one of the keywords.

- "hotels in las vegas", 114,000,000 hits, 3 of 10 are hyphenated AND have one of the keywords.

- "digital cameras", 330,000,000 hits, 2 out of 10 are hyphenated.

- "computers", 1,590,000,000 hits, 2 out of 10 are hyphenated.

[imacartoon]

Expat - I took a look at a few of the keywords and I do see there are some with a single hyphen that are in the top.

While I didn't check every keyword you listed most of the sites are not keyword focused.

Looking at #2 on hotels I see a single hyphen and not overuse of keywords in the domain. That won't be a problem

The point is don't overdo it - a single hyphen won't cause bad stuff to happen but where the problem arises is when there is too much of a keyword focus going on.

keyword-somethingelse.com seem to be fine however keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com will start to become a problem.

I did see one result that was like this:

keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.domainname.com

As most of us are aware there are problems in ranking with overuse of a keyword. I believe this to be partially why the keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com domains are not ranking.

[old_expat]

"While I didn't check every keyword you listed most of the sites are not keyword focused."

Then I guess you need to define "keyword focused" for me.

In the *travel* sector .. when I see travelcountry.com, I see 2 words (and both are keywords) that get pretty good results for "travel to country" .. and to me, thats about as *focused* as it gets.

[Kirby]

I see hyphenated domains like area-real-estate all the time. Keyword focused, not spam or scraper content and no problems in search engines.

Matt's example of hyphenated spam was more like v!@gra-loans-payday-advance-c@sino

Big difference. Its still all about content and design.