Use of two hyphens in place of one?

[premier teague]

On looking to purchase a domain; the one I am interested is not for sale. It has a single hyphen between two words.
If I was to purchase the same domain but with two hyphens, would Google have a problem with this as it will be used for SEO purposes.

For example: www.example--example.com vs www.example-example.com

[edited by: vitaplease at 1:57 pm (utc) on June 28, 2004]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[Rhadamanthus]

I wouldn't if I could avoid it. It doesn't have anything to do with Google - being computer driven Google's not going to care about the extra hyphen, but your users will. They'll have trouble remembering that it's there. It's hard enough for me to remember whether the site I want is hyphenated or not, I'd never remember the extra hyphen.

[troels nybo nielsen]

I don't know how Google will react, but a double hyphen is very user unfriendly and completely unnatural. If I had a search engine I certainly would let such an extra hyphen raise a flag.

<added
You beat me, Rhadamantus. But I'm glad that we agree.
</added>

[pageoneresults]

The other thing to consider is legal issues. Would purchasing that domain infringe upon someone else's company name? Are there any trademarks associated with the non-hyphenated and single hyphenated version?

Double hyphens are a no-no from all aspects of marketing. Why they even allow this is beyond me.

[Leosghost]

And it'll make you look like someone who writes virii in javascript in their spare time ..a very "uncool" profession at the moment..

[dirty_marra]

Premier Teague,

i'd be very careful about doing that.

last year we spent over £2500 in legal fees defending a "passing off" claim.

As way of an example we are known as:

thewayofthewidget.co.uk

and they were

widgetltd.co.uk

Unsurprisingly we avoided the court room and the witgetltd people dropped their case....but the point is that is cost us £2500 for that to happen.

In my opinion anything that'll take your eye off the ball is a bad thing.

Marra

[premier teague]

okay guys, thanks for the input. Won't go down that avenue then. Was just curious as to whether Google could distinguish between one an two hyphens?

[rfgdxm1]

>Double hyphens are a no-no from all aspects of marketing. Why they even allow this is beyond me.

I'm surprised that you'd make such a comment. You haven't noticed that a lot of the WWW consists of other than people trying to sell stuff? That it is a no-no from all aspects of marketing wouldn't be an issue for some teenager with a personal site.

[pageoneresults]

You haven't noticed that a lot of the WWW consists of other than people trying to sell stuff?

Unfortunately no. Since I look at the Internet as a means of advertising and marketing products, I sometimes fail to see the other side of the coin. ;)

But, in this instance, double hyphens would be ju-ju (saw that somewhere else) from my perspective.

[rfgdxm1]

>But, in this instance, double hyphens would be ju-ju (saw that somewhere else) from my perspective.

And I'd say in almost all cases, for an amateur site to use double hyphens would be bad. The users would have to memorize the oddball domain name, and memories tend to be fuzzy. Only way it would make sense for a person site to use such a domain name was if the owner consistently used a nym on the Internet that included a double hyphen. For example, if I consistently posted on Usenet and website bulletin boards as "omnipotent--widget", then omnipotent--widget.org would make sense as a domain name for my personal site.