Effect of hyphen in a keyphrase domain name?

[jk3210]

I have a question concerning keywords in the domain name. Disregarding whether or not Google does or does not give a boost to keywords in the tld, does anyone have any practical experience on this...

If the target phrase is [keyword1 keyword2], has anyone noticed any difference in the performance of...

keyword1keyword2.com
vs.
keyword1-keyword2.com

I'd also like to disregard the effect of anchor text in the links such domains might acquire. I'm interested strictly in the positive or negative effect of the hyphen in a keyphrase domain name.

[dailypress]

I had a hyphenated domain name. But it was a very competitive niche.
it was home-mortgage.TLD I had lots of difficulty trying to rank for this term.

However, based on my experience of looking through SERPs I think keyword1-keyword2 did rank pretty well a while ago but in todays world, I think it doesnt really make a difference.

The domain keywords are becoming less relavant in SERPs (with or without a hyphen) and Content and Backlinks and other factors are getting more priority.

If I were to chose or buy one of the domains you listed I would purchase and use the one without a hyphen.

p.s.> on the other hand I do think example.com/keyword1-keyword2 ranks better than example.com/keyword1keyword2
no reason why I can think of, but just my personal experience.

Im curious to see what others have to say... >>

[FranticFish]

See this quote from Matt Cutts in an Oct09 BusinessWeek.com article titled 'Matt Cutts: How Google Deals With Web Spam'

"...like in the old days when you saw a lot of dashes, like cheap-viagra-online-discount-herbal-whatever.com, you might think, OK, that’s a spammy domain, so maybe we train on the number of dashes in a domain to determine spam. But it turns out that doesn’t work so well, because in different cultures, not only are there perfectly valid domains like blueberry-farms.com, but in, say, Germany, they have a lot more dashes on average."

[FranticFish]

domain keywords are becoming less relavant in SERPs (with or without a hyphen)

What I see in a variety of niches in the UK doesn't support that view. At a local level (i.e. service town / service county) these give you a ridiculous advantage - I mean, really silly.

For bigger searches I don't see them, but that's because bigger companies use branded domains and generally employ better SEO techniques.

[HuskyPup]

I have quite a few domains whereby I own both keyword1keyword2 and keyword1-keyword2 and I have deliberately developed keyword1-keyword2 since it looks so much easier on the eye and, subjectively, is it more memorable?

I wouldn't consider trying to develop a keyword1-keyword2 against an extablished, quality keyword1keyword2...too much hard work and possibly one might be leaving oneself open to legal action.

[CainIV]

I own both types of domains, and it doesn't seem to make any difference to SEO whatsoever.

But dashed domains are difficult to convey to others, very difficult to brand, and usually suffer a resale value hit because of it.

[HuskyPup]

But dashed domains are difficult to convey to others, very difficult to brand, and usually suffer a resale value hit because of it.

I'm being dumb here on 3 things...convey, brand and resale.

Joe Public, in general, is not as dumb as many "webmasters" would try and convince their paymasters.

Ok, I agree some people do not understand that hyphen means dash however that is bad English teaching standards, branding can be very effective with a "-" when many letters are seemingly jumbled together and, bite my tongue, why are you looking for a resale value?

I find it intensely anti-social when people are seeking and screwing for the last possible penny.