bluewidgets.com or blue-widgets.com

[souffle]

what is better to have as domain name assuming i have two options

bluewidget.com or blue-widget.com

[edited by: mona at 2:34 pm (utc) on Oct. 20, 2006]
[edit reason] no specific urls - thx! [/edit]

[billk89]

bluewidget.com

[edited by: jatar_k at 2:00 am (utc) on Oct. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] no urls thanks [/edit]

[Lobo]

option 1 is best.. but get both

[Gary_Numan]

Can someone explain why option 1 is better?

I was under the impression that without the hyphen a search engine would see bluewidget as one word, and so any relevance to a search for 'blue widget' would not be picked up.

Thanks

Gary

[Gary_Numan]

c'mon somebody :)

If you are telling us all to go in one drection at least explain why.

Gary

[justdave]

If you are buying a domain for search engine usability, I wouold go with blue-widgets.com. If you are buying a domain for people usability I would use bluewidgets.com. People who type in a URL directly typically do not remember to put the "-" in the URL. It just depends on what your goal is, I guess. I personally would get the non-hyphenated domain.

[pshea]

I own something like your example blue-widgets.com and I used to beat bluewidgets.com every time. Now I don't. I let the optimization of blue-widgets.com sort of slip and while I wasn't paying attention, Google put the dictionary into its formula for URLs and now bluewidgets.com and I are otherwise equals. In other words, Google will resolve the domain name bluewidgets for blue widgets as well as it will for blue-widgets.

So it actually comes down to a matter of aesthetics and what you believe your target audience will more easily remember.

So whichever you own, purplepeanuts.com or purple-peanuts.com, at this point in the game, it comes down to optimization.

[Gary_Numan]

quote from PShea - "In other words, Google will resolve the domain name bluewidgets for blue widgets as well as it will for blue-widgets."

How does that work when the words can be interpreted differently?

For example, let's say I set up a site for people to sell or exchange parts for cars. partsexchange.com

Will Google see it as Parts Exchange or Part Sex Change?

Also what about WindowsLive and Yahoo, do thet resolve a domain name in the same way?

Gary

[pshea]

The answer to bluewidgets vs blue-widgets can only be answered by keeping the context of the answer to a two-word URL. Google won't take a run-on three word query and see it as three words.

If you run a search on partsexchange, Google finds partsexchange.com and places it at the top. But as an alternate query offer, it asks 'Did you mean: parts exchange'

If you run a search on part sex change, Google returns results related to sex change issues. G does not come back as ask you to clarify with an alternate 'Did you mean' question.

Three word combinations don't seem to trigger the 'Did you mean' alternative.

Search whitewedding vs whiteweddingday, etc.

So Gary, the hyphen question, needs to be restricted at this time to two word combinations.