when to stop buying names

hyphenated keyword names available... should I buy?

[too much information]

I just took a look to see if there were a few domains for sale, and sure enough they are available.

The names are along the lines of www.keyword1-keyword2.com and there are three that fit for my sites.

I have always been weary of hyphenated domains, do the hyphens cause anyone problems?

Also, would having these domains as pointers really be a help to rankings or are multiple domains for a single site just too much?

(One point I want to add is that one of the hyphenated names is identical to a site above me in the SERPs, if you drop the hyphen. It's not a trademark name either so I don't have to worry about infringement.)

[Ove]

HI

I should have bouth it because iss better that you own it or someone else.

Do a search in the site search for hyphen domain names and you will a lot of discussíons of this topic.

/Ove

[joost]

As fas as I know, the hyphens do not cause any problems. Actually I think that it used to be the other way around: search engines could better read the keywords as separate keywords because of the hyphens. That advantage now seems to have disappeared. I have used donains with hyphens for years now, without any problems. They do seem to have less value for resale, though. But if you use them for youw own site, that is no issue.

[irock]

joost,

actually, I think the benefit to having a hyphenated domain doesn't come from the domain itself. When most people link to your site, they simply copy and paste the URL onto their pages. If you have hypens seperating keywords in your domain names, it is believed (at least I do) that search engine robots will pick up keywords from your URL more easily, and hence, boosting your site rank popularity for those keywords.