Is separating the keywords in domains good or bad or neutral? For example is there any seo or other advantage in going for, say, web-hosting-provider.com instead of webhostingprovider.com? To my mind, the hyohenated version tells search engines that the url consists of meaningful words whereas the other version is not a word in the dictionary. So it should gain whatever seo benefit url offers. On the other hand, if people have to type in the url, the second version is easier. There is also the possibility of traffic leak to non-hyphenated domains with the same words. But then, don't most people land on sites clicking through some links and not by typing in urls? Until recently, I was a fan of hyphenated urls. However, I find it is not that popular, and wondered whether there is some significance to this lack of popularity other than the possibility of traffic leak.
I think you've responded to all the pros and cons yourself. The two serious negatives to hyphens would be "traffic leak" (or your same-name competition without hyphens getting your traffic) and the possibility of people not remembering to add the hyphen which causes the traffic leak. From what I understand, it's 50/50. On one hand, you get to use your keywords or keywords that are already taken, simply by adding a hyphen, although the good ones are already taken. On the other hand, hyphens get missed in the urls. I was looking at this myself yesterday, so I understand the dilemna. The thing that clinched it for me as a naysayer was this; One article I read talked about how hyphens used to be a good thing and their use by separating key words actually helped to improve the website's ranking, pushing the site further up the ladder. But now ... with the overuse of key words by "overzealous" users, search engines see hyphenated key words as spamming and although it may make it easier for the search engines to pick it up, it could also have a negative affect on your ranking. So I decided against it. My own problem is while I could easily go .net or hyphenated, I'd be competing against parked domains in .com and even though mine would be an actual website with fresh content daily, the .com non-hypehnated crap would win. So I look for something orginal, one keyword at least and something brandable and memorable. So many great and useful domains have driven into the parking lot. It's a shame. Good luck. Lor
Just ask yourself a small question. How many websites you visit (actually type) their domain names with hyphens and how many times you type it correctly? For e.g. which domain you will type easily and remember ruchiedomains.com OR ruchie-domains.com? Always remember, using a hyphenated domain is as good as the variant of the non-hyphenated domain. This means that you will loose 90% of the direct traffic and trust me, people will never remember the hyphen.
Hyphens have their pros and cons. Like others have stated, you will lose traffic from people forgetting the hyphen in the domain. Personally, I own a domain with a hyphen in it due to the actual domain that I wanted originally was taken. I don't regret the choice because in most cases it makes the url easier to read. I think it really depends on what type of site your running. If you're running an MFA site I don't think it would matter much since most people will be clicking on links most of the time. Hope that helps. -AJ
Most traffic comes from search engines, direct links, and bookmarks apposed to type ins as far as I know.
Would you think it is better to have a non-hyphenated .net domain name, rather than a hyphenated .com with the same words, for example: my-car.com is better or worse than mycar.net ? what do people forget more often, the hyphen or the net?
Imagine people telling others about your domain, blabla hyphen bla .com, it would mostly likely cause confusion. I have never registered a domain with hyphens.