To hyphen or Not to hyphen, that is the question...

I'm looking for a new URL for my site. I've tried many different combinations of the keyword(s) I want to target. Unfortunately the best I can find that are available are with a "Hyphen."

I checked out the sites using the names I was trying for. One of them is actually a redirect to another URL.

My question is how does using the hypen affect the ability for ranking, etc? Particularly in the previously mentioned case where the name is a redirect.

Of course I can always try to come up with a name that doesn't describe the site at all and make sure to SEO the rest of the site, hopefully making enough of a difference. Kind of like the word "GOOGLE." Sounds like a goofy word to me, but it has become a major, world wide term.

Thanx

 

I read a review of the best SEO authorities opinions in the business, and they all agree, 1 hyphen (-) in the domain name is OK, but 2 or more get penalized in the SERPS.

-RonMo

 

How much and why ? I am having 3 hyphen in my domain ! what can be done to minimize the damage ?

 

Those so called 'best SEO authorities' are morons. Explain why I'm #1 here!!

 

@Nintendo
I agree with you.

It doesn't mean that having 2 hypens degrades a website.

Few of my clients domains have 2 hypens and are doing well.

 

OK - So it seems that the hyphen doesn't actually kill the ratings as much as I originally thought... as per Nintendos site (congrats Bro!)

Can I also assume that if I use a hyphenated domain name that is already used (as a redirect) that I'm staying away from any grey areas of ethics?

 

you've got the top spot coz it is your domain name.

hyphen only matters to domainers coz it lowers the value of a name and most online visitors are used w/o hyphen on the url..

 

google just see hyphens as spaces. It's good (at the moment) to have hyphens. Matt Cutts says so, and so did the Google people I spoke to last year

 

lol you freak! what on earth would you do with "15.40 Megs of images of Ronald Reagan."
http://www.public-domain-content.com/zip.shtml

 

we noticed in the v7ndotcom contest that non-hyphenated domains were doing very well. Even if we used to take hyphenated one.

 

I'm a con*****tive (Political word.) freak!!!! Think Rush Limbaugh!!!!

 

Preferably you should own the domain both with and without the dashes, and then just do a redirect of the non-dash domain.

 

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I would say if you have the content and stuff, hypen does not matter as it goes with my Mobile related site. Its pr4 and has around 300 uniques daily. Its got 4000 pages listed in google, so where does the question of hypen arise here.

 

Mr Marco,
have you asked the owners of the redirected domain you want if they might sell it to you?

 

hyphens in and of themselves do not devalue a domain name. in fact they can often help engines recognize words and better understand what to expect in the content of the pages.

 

I think most will agree that hyphens in domains make them seem spammy. However, as Nintendo will prove, this is not always true.

 

Whatever works, works. I still think it's better to have a name that people can actually remember how to type into their browsers

 

I think 1 or 2 hyphens are ok with good keywords, 3 is kind of pushing it, and-four-or-more-is-getting-pretty-bad.

 

Actually I have regged a hyphened domain for the contest - not sure why.