Sub domains hyphenated or not?

sub domains

[Novus]

Hi All


I wonder if I could get some opinions on how to setup a subdomain, the company has created 2 brands for its self, on purpose or inadvertently i do not know, but one brand is catered for the originating brand. However they are quite keen to get some content up relating to the second brand as evidenced by enquiries at a recent trade show.

Rather than building a totally new seperate site I think creating a sub domain on the existing site would be a simpler option and seemingly create a synergy between the two brands and ofcourse taking advantage of keywords.

My question is to hyphenate the sub domain or not? Currently the domain is not so I’m leaning to something like bluewidgetnow.megawidgets.com rather than blue-widget-now.megawidgets.com

Many thanks

[httpwebwitch]

I'd avoid the hyphens, unless their absence causes confusion, as in this classic example:

expertsexchange => experts-exchange/expert-sex-change

[rocknbil]

HAHA that is the most awesome example I've ever seen. LOL . . . maybe classic, but I've never seen it. :-)

[Novus]

Thank you for the reply webwitch, would you also agree that taking into account such things as the brands domain name already being taken and the fact that the content is related to, but not necessarily a part of. That a sub domain is a better route to take than sub folders?

What I’m aiming for is to attract organic search for the subdomains brand then push them straight to the "main" brands site i.e. the ccTLD.

There is a synergy between products of the subdomain and the content of the main domain. One is a service the other are products that "can" be used in conjunction with that service but it’s not exclusive.

[httpwebwitch]

Products that can be used with a service? that feels like a subfolder to me, not a subdomain.

It's so subjective.

Don't stress by thinking that it matters very much. Some people will notice that it's a subdomain/subfolder, but most people won't, the majority of your visitors don't care, and lots probably arrived via a bit.ly or goo.gl link so they have no clue what the URL is anyways.

So when you decide, decide for yourself so when you're maintaining the site you have a coherent organization to things and an extensible convention that works.

BTW I don't think it makes much difference to SEO, if any. Other factors are far more important.