Your thoughts on using Hyphens in a domain name...

I've been trying to find a domain name for a new site and the only good ones i seem to find have hyphens between the words....

What are your thoughts on using hyphens? is it good to use them or would you recommend keeping the words together?

All opinions and thoughts appreciated...

 

depends on what the purpose of the site is. If it's a blog, sure why not. If you're trying to make this site be your money maker, I'd stick with 2 or 3 words not exceeding 10 letters. There are bunch of sites available, but it all depends on if you want .com . net etc. If you want some names thrown at you, let me know. Just need some sort of idea on what your thinking and I'll try to give you wicked names.

 

If you are talking about the root domain, then it is much better if there is no hyphen. If your domain have hyphens, the the domain value goes low.

 

i will write a post and give you the link in a few

 

alright... I just wrote Buying Domains? 5 Red Flags You Should Avoid here https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/buying-domains-5-red-flags-you-should-avoid.2651110/

 

Hyphens in a domain?
Why not?
A domain is just an address.
If You want a domain mainly with the intention to resell it, then better keep this in mind:
Domain traders seem to have accepted that hyphens in a domain make it less valuable.
Of course, that is just the opinion of some people with the same mind set.
What's trash for one person could be gold for someone else.
I said "Could" because it does not happen often.
If the domain is intended to be used for a longer term project, and priority is given to content/product/online sales etc. then the name does not really matter.
A name can be changed anytime, but why should it if the project is successful with the current name?
It is important to remember that brokers and resellers think about some things differently than end users.

 

Hyphens are word separators, it can be good for SEO. Although you don't get type-in traffic.

 

It really depends on what your site is and the purpose of it. I've mostly seen hyphens being used for SEO purposes for targeting keywords. I personally been leaning towards more brand sounding domain names recently, but I'm also trying to build larger authority sites.

One of the music blogs I frequent often to download new EDM music has a hyphen in the name, but also carries a brand. It doesn't stop me from typing it into the address bar. So really, it's all about your goal for the site.

 

I think it kinda makes sense using them when you have two words... the last letter of the first word is the same as the first letter of the second word. Without the hyphen it looks a bit funny.

 

That's the only case I see a hyphen suitable. Like, theelaphant.com looks awkward. The-elephant.com looks a lot better and more readable in my opinion. Other than that, I don't think hyphens are worth it, and they just decrease any future resell value.

 

Thank you for the feedback... some really helpful points made.

 

It would help in SEO there is no doubt to it, I would say...... but if you are going to create any authority site, where you have to build your brand name then hyphen is not good...

 

I've just sold three domains in the last two months with hyphens no problem presented by the buyers as they were marketing add-on domains for their primary businesses.

 

There is no problem to use hyphens. It can sometimes be good to have some, as word seperators. I work often with this. That the price of the domain goes down isn't really true. Some Buyers will tell that, but actually is how good and successful your domain/website goes!

 

First read this > http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=76329

then search on Google for "Good Google SEO" and you will find this in 2nd place >

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

and make up your own mind about each individual situation would be my advice

 

Can sometimes be ok IMO, but I used one for a blog I do and everytime I tell someone about it face to face, I have to say the name and then say "with hyphens between the words" and I instantly know they'll never look it up!

 

hence why one word or two word "brand" names are the best for that. as we see for two words with the likes of DP, FB, WP, PP, etc and why those with longer strings hanker after the abbreviations like BBC, ABC etc

 

yeah totally, where I went wrong was trying a short but memorable phrase - in the excitement of putting it together I felt it would work, and be something that stands out as different...cold light of day, not convinced it worked...

 

well such things are good for use as keyword rich domains

 

Red flags when using hyphens? You might be losing a great opportunity to make money depending on the chosen name.

Despite it's suggested that hyphens must be avoided, I had a huge success with an hyphenated domain that was a sort of 911 number, and that I sold eventually for a decent amount of money.

There are times when you may register the hyphenated version of a popular domain name and drive organic traffic if such name is a two words name, in example digitalpoint.com is this domain, but someone is taking advantage of this name and registered digital-point.com if you are following what I mean.

In addition, remember that Google treats hyphens like a space so there is not hurt at all, and many people used more than one hyphen to register long-tail keyword domains.