Domain name with -dash Vs without -dash

whihc domain name is better the one with dash or not

[ashman95]

Hi I have done a search engine saturation test on my site and found that both www.domainname.com and www.domain-name.com are ranked for different keywords.

Both sites are exactley the same.......however recentaly we have seen a massive drop in rankings and i was wondering what is it that we should do and which domain shall we keep as the main one?

here are the results:

Saturation Results for
www.domain.com
Google9,970 pages
Yahoo173 pages
MSN6,104 pages

Saturation Results for
www.domain-name.com (with dash)
Google35,600 pages
Yahoo5,520 pages
MSN4,934 pages

Both sites rank highly for different keywords but with the recent drop in rankings we need to make sure google does not see us as duplicating content? Your advice and help will be appreciated.

Cheers

[caveman]

The two sites will be seen as duplicate content most certainly. Unless you want to risk both, you have two choices: Kill one, or remake one sufficiently to ensure that it is view as an entirely different site by the SE's.

Your question seems to be which one to keep based on whether it's better to have a hyphenated domain or not. IMHO, that's the wrong question. If the sites are well established with backlinks and rankings, the question is, which one was ... and which one is ... providing better traffic, and more importanly, greater income?

From the data you provide, www.domain-name.com clearly has the better backlink profile, but that doesn't tell us about the money. Where's the money?

If they're both doing well for traffic and income, then forget about the hyphenated domains; keep the one that has the better backlink profile, and kill or remake the other. Personally, I'd remake it.