having a domain that is relevant to the key word(s) that one is trying to rank for. Does having dashes in between the words hurt your rankings? Meaning if you is trying to rank for the phrase "cell phone recycling" would the domain www(dot)cell-phone-recycling(dot)com as opposed to www(dot)cellphonerecycling(dot)com hurt your chances of making first page?
I asked exactly the same thing on another webmaster forum. The general consensus was this it doesn't hurt either way in terms of ranking in Google. All you really need to consider is how identifiable the domain is to your users. Google sees hyphens as spaces, so it would definitely benefit you if there was another way your domain could be read. A good example I found doing a search was expertsexchange, how would google know if that means experts-exchange or expert-sex-change? Here's a link to that article
I agree with Conran. In most tests people have conducted, the hyphens do not cause any problems in ranking.
Also to add, hyphens won't hurt your rankings in any way. Okay so imagine if it did hurt, then all websites that have used hyphens won't be able to rank in Google just because they've used hyphens? As what Conran have stated, hyphens are considered as spaces and could also be beneficial for you depending on your domain name.
On my own experience, keywords in domain name with hyphen is better than the one not with hyphen. But still there is little use to use a hyphen in domain name for ranking. The most important thing for ranking is backlinks with your keywords. Regards, Stephen
Hypens won't make any effect in ranking, there are words that should use hypen so it is not a factor for domains. But still the whole optimization process will prevail the good rankings of a site.
Domain from the user experience point of view should be simple and easy to understand, from the major search engines consider keyword
Hyphens are preferred for a long name like your example, but not too many. Two hyphens should be max. More than that and both G & visitors think it is a junk name (cell-phone-recycling-center-with-free-shipping.com).
That's actually not true. One should consider the country in which they are operating and in which their primary audience is. For example: Having a .com and the associated site hosted on a US server is great if your market is predominantly American. But it's bad if your audience is primarily European.