Using domain names with hyphens

Hi,

I have an question about using hyphens inside domain names.
Let me give you an example.

Let we say that firstexamplepage .com is registered.
We can always try to register first-example-page .com and in most cases will be free to register.
But, if this is high competition niche there are chances that also this kind of domain name will be taken.

What really bothers me if Search Engines see first-example-page .com same as they would see firstexample-page .com or not!?

Would that kind of domain name be useless or it would be the same as word-word-word ???


thx





I know that it will have some effect on overall SERPs, but

 

Its all the same, still has your keywords. Overall this is a VERY VERY small part of rankings so I wouldn't put much thought into it. The time you spent thinking about this you probably could've gotten a couple backlinks that would've been of more value.

 

it would be ok, unless you had the exact same content on both sites in which case it could be considered duplicated content

 

Currently, having the EXACT MATCH domain name ie yourdomainname.com will give you a huge advantage in the SEO game.

tbh, i reckon you should avoid the use of hyphens, i remember potpiegirl over at WA conducting a research on how different domains do in ranking. She used the .com, .net, .info, .org and a hyphen.com and the one with hyphens came in last.

try to get the exact match domain with a letter or a word after the KW, ie yourdomainnameWORD.com

 

Search Engines do not value web addresses with hyphens as much as ones without them. I have a site with a hyphen in it and I definitely believe I would be doing better with google if the domain name didn't have it.

 

but having a hyphen in the name with only your targeted keyword is better than your domain name having your keyword with another word in-front of it without a hyphen.

 

This actually changed (in Google) with the recent algorithm update. Matt Cutts has said publically that they've removed weighting from the domain name exact matches, and rightly so I believe. I personally feel the only reason (with some exceptions) an exact match domain should have more weight is if the search is a brand, so if i search for 'ebay' I don't expect DigitalPoint to come up (excuse the insider joke there). I also don't expect somegenerickeyphrase.com to appear top just because they hogged the domain first, if I'm searching for a product then I'd prefer it if lots of brands appeared, or a wiki page on the product - and unless you have a crap name for your company, it's unlikely you would want productname.com as your domain.

 

Its not that simple, if yo have a domain name with hyphens thats 10 years old and a solid backlink structure and someone buys the un-hyphenated name and does an XRumer blast who do you think will rank higher? Its a factor, sure, but not a big one by a long chalk. Depends really on how optimised the un hyphenated domain is. Only real difference -you wont get so much type-in traffic

 

forget the hyphens, in this context, they mean nothing to the search engines.

 

Search in Google hotel Canada keyword terms and you will find in top double hyphen site ...

 

Though there isn't a major and direct impact on such domain names in the SEO perspective, it is good not to choose them in the reader's point of view as well as if you intend to sell it at some point of time. This is the reason why hyphenated domain names are not widely used when it comes to quality business online. If you really want to know the insider secrets, you may visit dotsauce.com.

 

yes this is the seo friendly method.

 

They are seo friendly but they are not user friendly. Most people will forget to type in the - if they type it in the url bar. I try to stay away from them but xda developers has a - in their url and they are doing pretty good.

 

I believe it all depends on what you put in to get out.

 

If you buy domain for search engine, you can use hyphens. It doesn't matter. If you are buying domain for visitors, don't use hyphens because visitors will forget to type it and you will send them to your competition.

 

From a seo point of view there is for sure no disadvantage for urls with a hyphen. Especially in hard niches the domain can give you an andvantage. The best case is, if you have both urls;-)

 

Partly of course this depends on how much likely traffic you will get from direct URL types as well. As whiskyshop.com is going to get more direct url traffic than whisky-shop.com so this drives up the pricing slightly i think

 

Use hyphens if the domain name consisting of just your targeted keyword is taken and you plan on getting most of your traffic off of search engines. If this is not the case and you are relying on people to manually type in your address in their browsers, then don't use hyphens. But the use of hyphens are definitely more search engine friendly than using an excessive word before or after your keyword.

 

There is a huge impact for having key words in domain names get them in there however you can even if you have to use hyphens!

 

You can choose hyphens in Domain URL that's not big isssue