Which URL is better?

I have the choice of two domains, and would like to know which one is better for SEO etc.

martialartsfighter.com

OR

martial-arts-fighter.com

Do the '-'s help in anyway with SEO or anything or is the first the better?

Thank you.

 

Definately the top one. You should try to avoid unnecessary characters in the domain.

 

Yeah, when I'm optimizing the domain name for a specific keyword (which I guess is what you are doing), dashes are always a second choice.

 

The first one. The Hyphens are bad for any domain name imo.

 

First one for 2 reasons. It is better for SEO and easier for people to remember.

 

Eh, Are you sure its really better for SEO? I thought google didn't care if it had dashes or not. Dashes are only bad for people to remember.

 

I've read somewhere that with the hyphens, SEO will improve because it will be seen as three different words. What do people type in Google? martialartsfighter or martial arts fighter ?

 

First one for sure. Hyphens don't carry as much weight as they once did and people will forget that they are there and type in the first one.

Skinny

 

Thanks everyone, I thought the first as well, but as bobmeetsworld mentions, the whole dash thing was because I know Google views dashes as spaces.

Seems consensus is the first though.

Couple more comments and I'll order I think

 

Here's what Matt Cutts has to say about it:http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

 

Better the first without dashes. Easier to type, and with equal SEO value as dashed sitename.

 

Thanks everyone.

Just ordered it, without the dashes.

I have a similar domain name for another site, but had to have a dash in the URL as the one I wanted had already been taken by a competitor.

I know it's hard to orally describe the dash to non internet people.

Thanks for the advice.

 

no doubt first one if available

 

You really want honest advice? Go with the second one. Google and other search engines treat the dashes as keyword delimiters (for example, if your domain name was expertsexchange.com would you want your site to show up for people looking for experts exchange or expert sex change?). Not only that, but given the choice of words you've used in your domain name, the second will be easier to remember, given that the dashes indicate which words are what (as the expertsexchange.com example shows).

Oh and if you haven't heard, Google will soon be accepting the underscore (_) character as a keyword delimiter.

 

which url out of these is better.... subdomain.domain.com or domain.com/subdomain ?

 

subdomain.domain.com gets treated as a separate site by the search engines and is used to separate major parts of a Web site (like separating a forum from the main site)

domain.com/directory (which you have incorrectly listed as subdomain) is just a folder in the main site and is treated by the search engines as a folder on the main site

 

martialartsfighter.com is better because people will not remember the option with -

 

Go with the second one!
Martial, Arts and Fighter will be treated as keywords for your site, and it will be great for your SEO, because they are in your URL.

 

I was just indicating that the folder would have the same name as the subdomain ... not that it was actually a subdomain. I should have been more clear

 

I know. I just said what I did (about the directory/subdomain) for the benefit of others who may not have known that.