Which domain is better?

big-blue-widget.com or bigbluewideget.com

[darkroom]

One Simple question:

is www.big-blue-widget.com better than www.bigbluewidget.com in terms of ranking for the keyword "big blue widget"

I think www.big-blue-widget.com is better but it looks really unprofessional..any opinions?

[jojojo]

I have been wondering the exact same thing.

Does google see them as three seperate words without the hypens?

My shrink wants to know more about this Dominic fellow that I recently encountered :(

[DavidT]

'www.big-blue-widget.com' , Google sees this as five words, www, big, blue, widget, and com.

'www.bigbluewidget.com' G sees this as three words, www, bigbluewidget, and com.

Hyphens will give you some advantage, particularly if people linking you choose to use the domain name as the link text-this could be a big advantage.

[vnsampat]

I tried both the combinations for one of my sites, and it hardly mattered.

Yahoo seems to highlight the search term in the URL, however it managed to highlight the term in both the versions, with and without the -

Vishal.

[rfgdxm1]

www.big-blue-widget.com for sure. However, if you are relying on type-ins, register both, and redirect the non-hypenated one to the hyphenated one.

[g1smd]

I have been using domain.isp.com/widget.type.here/ named sub-folders, using all dots, on websites for ages, and achieved first page (often #1) results.

Any thoughts on that? I have never used runtogetherwords or hyphenated-key-phrases. Using dots has more consistency.

To me, www.some-keyword-name.com/more-keyword-stuff looks too untidy. You gotta remember which are hyphens and which are dots.

Using underscores is even worse, as the underscore may be confused with a space on some screens.