[edited by: Webwork at 3:00 am (utc) on June 25, 2006]
[edit reason] Language and Charter [/edit]
Hyphens are hell on type-ins, though really good 2 word domains get some.
Hyphens can rank in search engines that matter, but that ranking is a factor of other variables of far greater weight than a "word separator". Google has no problem separting words without resort to hyphens.
There seems to be two aspect to the hyphen question.
One is it's affect on communicating the domain effectively.
Whilst you could say that the individual words of hyphenated domain are separated and thus easier to see
and retain in the mind there are definite disadvantages.
You will have to make a particular point of indicating the hyphen since it is not usual in general
written or verbal communications. This then is a extra burden on your
promotional efforts
and if you don't get the hyphen message across you could end up directing traffic to the
unhyphenated version. Also remember that a hyphen is not a usual keystroke and many people
simply don't know where it is on the keyboard. Putting any hurdle whatsoever in front
of those most precious of people, your site traffic, should in my view be avoided like crazy.
The second consideration is general Seo and is hyphenated an advantage or an disadvantage.
Say for a webmaster who has a totally Internet entity. and doesn't care to much about ongoing branding across various
media. The domain will be only shown for Ad words etc
Well the general consensus seems to be that a hyphenated domain might have a slight edge
although search engines are able to see individual words in the domain. Although the fact
that they are bolded in urls in search results doesn't seem to mean much as that is applied after the serp has been determined.
However in this second case the domain might be easier to read and look more clickable.
But be warned as put by Quadrille in a recent post.
more than one hyphen is the international shorthand for "Idiot Webmaster", and more than two hyphens is the galaxy-wide shorthand for "I'd be a spammer if only I knew how"
