3 Hyphens in Domain Name - How Bad?

[internetheaven]

Our site name is something like "no guts no glory" i.e. four very short words that are a common phrase.

In a domain name four short words look lost -- noeatnosoup.co.uk or norednofun.co.uk -- so we have no-eat-no-soup.co.uk (plus domain squatters are sitting on most of the other variants!).

But that is three hyphens and the site dropped in rank a few weeks ago despite having 10x more backlinks, PR5 (to everyone else's PR1-2) etc.

Is there a devaluing for having hyphens that increases with the number of hyphens? Our 10 year old site that has held excellent rankings for those 10 years, throughout all Google storms, just dropped several places some weeks ago. The same time this site dropped.

I've been running through the list of sites I manage and it certainly seems on the face of it that hyphenated domains have been hit recently.

Of course, my problem is that I won't be able to tell if hyphenated domains have been hit or whether it's just that brand names have been given a boost as most of my domains are keyphrases, not brand names like FunjiGiggler.

[tedster]

For Google, there didn't used to be any rigid hyphen count in the algorithm. If a domain tripped other questions, then it could be one of the reinforcing negatives.

I believe Yahoo does use a signal like that, however. And Google could always change on this point, but in the past they were pretty sure their other factors would catch problem sites.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

I've been running through the list of sites I manage

Check if other competing sites (with hypens) appearing in the serps for the keyphrases you track have also lost positions.

[CainIV]

I own a two hyphen domain that never budged during the last update at all, so I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that it is likely domain specific factors that have caused the issue, rather than an issue stemming from hyphens themselves. I would agree with Tedster - hyphens - to the manual Google review - could be a negative flag, but usually only if assessed along with other evidence supporting some shady work.

[leadegroot]

I Never use hyphenated domains.
Just do all the marketing as NoEatNoSoup.co.uk - camel case is your friend.
Doesn't matter what appears in the address bar - just make sure the proper name of the site appears clearly on screen.
IMHO

Lea

[petehall]

I have a hyphenated site, which did have some issues but only on long tail searches so I think the hyphen's are irrelevant in this instance.

There are only two hyphens in the name though.

[bwnbwn]

we have 3 hyphened domain that is doing fine so to backup the others there is something else that caused the drop.

[steerpikegg]

Forgive me if I missed something, but why would hyphens incur a penaly - is this more of Google's control freakism ? In the UK, there's a real shortage of domain - hyphens are often the only option if you want a .co.uk

[tedster]

is this more of Google's control freakism

No - it's an example of the exact opposite. Google does NOT penalize simply for hyphens, even though Yahoo has been, according to public statements from their reps made at conferences.

Because spam sites "churn and burn" through lots of domain names, there was a strong tendency for them to use keyword-keyword-keyword-keyword.com because those names were easier to get. So that kind of domain name is a negative IF other factors trigger a manual review. The hyphens alone won't do it.

[Robert Charlton]

...why would hyphens incur a penalty...

There's a history behind this that should be noted. Not too many years ago, serps on some engines were filled with keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4.tld domains taking top spots. Links to the hyphenated domain names were taken as keyword links, because the hyphens were treated by the engines as spaces.

Yahoo may have been particularly vulnerable, Google perhaps less so because of its methods of weighting links.

The number of hyphens was widely discussed as a spam indicator. This legacy hangs on, at least in memory, and it's a concern that still comes up.