Google –keywords, hyphens and underscores in domain name.

Does it matter?

[jon80]

Google –keywords, hyphens and underscores in domain name.

I supervise a site on a free ISP on behalf of a small charitable organization established 10 years ago.
I would like to register a domain name for the organization, and set up a new site.
The organization has a three word title, two of which by happy chance are main keywords, referring to the country we work in and the main beneficiary group.

Is there any advantage to registering the organization as:
Keyword1keyword2otherword.org
Keyword1-keyword2-otherword.org
Keyword1_keyword2_otherword.org

I have checked out some earlier threads but cannot find a definitive answer on this.

[cornwall]

Have a look at this thread, [webmasterworld.com]it will help answer your question.

[kovacs]

You can't have underscores in a domain name.

The domain name has an absolutely minimal effect in ranking calculations - personally I would go for no hyphens if you are going to do offline promotion and branding, and hyphens if the site is only ever going to be promoted online (with no type-in traffic).

[Mohamed_E]

Keyword1keyword2otherword.org has a single keyword, the huge word "Keyword1keyword2otherword".

Keyword1_keyword2_otherword.org also has a single keyword, the equallly huge word "Keyword1_keyword2_otherword"

Keyword1-keyword2-otherword.org has three keywords, "Keyword1", "keyword2" and "otherword".

Spaces, hyphens and periods are word delimiters, underscores are just ordinary (non-delimiter) characters.

Check by doing a search of "allinurl:keyword1 keyword2 otherkeyword" and see what you get.

[Mohamed_E]

> Have a look at this thread, it will help answer your question.

Actually I suspect that there have been half a dozen threads this month on this topic :( :(

[jon80]

Thanks for the quick replies.
I'll check out the threads.