Should I use the "-" hyphen in my Domain Name?

[SelenaQuintanilla]

Hello SEO friends and happy Sunday!

I am going to launch website and hesitate for the domain between :
xyzexample.com
Or
xyz-example.com
which is the best choice?

My question is about should i use the "-"?

Thank you very much by advance! 🙏

[edited by: Webwork at 5:49 pm (utc) on Feb 13, 2023]

[mack]

Secure both to prevent someone else from grabbing it. My suggestion would be to use the non hyphen version and redirect the hyphen variant to the main domain.

Mack.

[lucy24]

It depends on the actual name, which of course you can't post. To me, subjectively, hyphens in domain names make it look spammy--and never mind that I actually have one site with a hyphen in it (threewordphrase was taken, so I picked threewordphrase-placename for readability). I can only think of one respectable site with two hyphens in the name.

[buckworks]

I strongly agree with Mack. You'd want control of both versions.

Something not mentioned yet is that a domain without hyphens is more graceful to pronounce and usually easier to understand in a spoken context. That could range from your telephone answering message to an interview on national radio.

Also give some thought to predictable typing errors. If someone heard your domain "exampleBBQ.com" mentioned and went to look for it, is there a chance they might type "examplebarbecue.com"? If yes, you might want to control that one too, to redirect to the main site.

[tangor]

Use a hyphen if it makes sense. Don't use a hyphen if it makes sense. Both are correct!

On the other hand, avoid the UNDERSCORE (most people can't find it on the keyboard and the underscore rarely shows in a serp link!

Cover your bases for typos of the domain name, at least the most LIKELY typos! One could invest a chunk of change trying to cover all variations!

Having said all that, I have had success with example-word.com several times over the last 20 year. The hyphen is obvious when written, when spoken it was said:

exampledashworddotcom and seemed to work just fine.

[edited by: not2easy at 12:28 pm (utc) on Feb 13, 2023]
[edit reason] OP request [/edit]

[Kendo]

we-do-this . com is a lot easier to remember and relate to than wedothis . com

[lucy24]

That comes back to the specific name. Will there be pronunciation ambiguities, or any risk of re-analyzing? On the one hand, example.com could be the weight-loss site “ex-ample” ... or the test-preparation site “exam-PLE”. On the other hand, “webmasterworld” really doesn't need further disambiguation.

[phranque]

i would avoid hyphens in domain names due to the difficulty of speaking it.

the only exception i would make is if there is a problematic ambiguous pronunciation, the most famous example of which is expertsexchange.com

even in this case, "experts dash exchange dot com" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...

[tangor]

Heh ... neither does the original. :)

Domain names need to SING! And most of the really good ones are already taken.

In most cases the hypen is for visual clarity and if seen in print, tv, film, that's alright. If you are trying to do the same on audio services, might not work so well.

[phranque]

you made my point - it's exactly one awkward syllable worse.

[SelenaQuintanilla]

Thank again for all your precious,
this is very interesting because is connect with different subject SEO, Branding, Readability...

I am french native so sorry for my english,)
In fact with your answer I just realized that the hyphen is something "very french" when i check about other country almost no one use it!

[edited by: Webwork at 1:05 pm (utc) on Feb 14, 2023]