Using hyphens in long domain names - good or bad?

Lets say i am making a vb template download site and since basically most domains that first come to mind are taken i'd have to think of something else, so a few times i've had to choose domains that a fairly long or are basically a small sentence so im asking is it better to have

qualityvbthemes.com
or
quality-vb-themes.com

does it make a difference in search results or anything like that. Should i just use no hyphens so its easier for the visitor to remember?

 

Not a big fan of the hyphen, especially multiple hyphens. Unless the words normally have a hyphen together I would stay away from them.

 

Bad!!
firstly Long Domains are not good for SEO and secondly Hyphens ... I dont like them

 

good for the keywords, bad for the users. And you'll have to create a website for the users first!

 

Hello,
Yes both will help you, more in MSN (in my experience), but of couse these kinds of domains looks spammy

Best
Jakomo

 

bullshit about the SE. For the user even better to remember and separate the worlds but on the domain market it will not cost a much so never mind if u register it for development. good content thats important!!!

 

I'd personally go for long without hyphens before long with hyphens.

 

I wouldn't use the hyphens if you can avoid it, as it doesn't look as professional and dramatically devalues the domain as well

 

Read this: Choosing the Right Domain Name - Brand vs. Keywords

That should help.

 

Thanks for the read few nifty points, i think i'll just stick without hyphens.

 

Hyphens are not bad just don't recommended
As people said before you loose typein traffic, search engines are clever now to understand how words glue each other so there is no need of a hyphen to seperate them for SEO purposes

 

They are a wast of time unless it is established .. lol .. other wise .. I can tell stay away form them in general.

Tk

 

Yea, another vote against the Hyphen. I can't think of a single domain I've ever used with a hyphen in it.

-JasonR

 

Hey y'a!l!

First & Foremost... Happy Fathers Day to the daddy's out there!

Now on to the business at hand...


It's hard to believe that this simple little character, the hyphen, has caused such a divided debate that often times becomes a heated one too!

Just the other day I had this same discussion with someone else.

Yes we all know the really really good 1 or 2 domain names are spoken for, but as long as people still remain creative, they'll always be plenty of good names to go around!

Now I have found there are 3 schools of though on this subject:

The first group of people are in favor of the use of hyphens in there domain names, because chances are they did a search for a particular domain without hyphens & found it has been taken. So they try it with hyphens and lo and behold.. it's available!
Usually they do this because they want to piggy-back onto the keywords of the domain without -'s and hope they will get some of that traffic.

Anything to make a quick buck! ARRGGHHH

Then there's the second group, they are in favor of the hyphens for really only one reason. These people do alot of print media type advertising, and let's face it, people have the attention span of a Cocker Spaniel short! lol

It's aknown fact that you have less than 30 seconds to capture someone attention... if you haven't within that small window, You've lost them!

You also run into the problem of the speed of some people's brain's process infomation at a slower pace than others.

Which domain name is easier to read & comprehend?

canyoureadthisdomainnameeasier.com

or
can-you-read-this-domain-name-easier.com

I don't know about y'all, but if I saw the second name in ad in a mazagine or newspaper, I'd remember the second one a lot quicker, and I'd be more likely to visit that one!

It's also more asthetically pleasing to the eye wouldn't you say?

I fall into the last category.

I'm against use the use of using hyphens in domain names with one exception.. Register the name without the -'s first but in addition also register the one with -'s and forward the domain to the domain without the -'s. This way you can use the domain with the -'s in your print media, but also not have the problems with Search Engines, beacuse your hyphenated domain points to your primary domain & site withou the hyphens. So they spiders will still crawl the site & list you without any problems.

I'd love to hear what others have to say about this topic!

Later,

 

hello everyone
i am not a friend of hyphen as far as domain names are concerned
but ya in your case i find it better than the name without hyphen

well thats what i think
gaurav
have a nice day

 

using hyphen with your domain name is an embarassment of you to view the site to the visitors. 99.9% of your visitors will not remember your url and the last 0.01% i think maybe only your just kidding.
i suggest you not to use hyphen if possible. try something else or cant find it now stay a few days later when u could find something prefer you. buy it!!!

 

I think something written by music_city_bound!! are right, but I think more than 1 hyphen are difficult for the visitors.
But I am a great lover of domain with 1 hyphen, And I hope one day multiple hyphen can be common on the web.
Sometimes when a domain look too long I think is better insert multiple hyphen

This is proved here:

canyoureadthisdomainnameeasier.com
or
can-you-read-this-domain-name-easier.com

 

however, I would never buy a domain name with anything more than 2 words and 1 hyphen (3 words and 2 hyphen would be pushing it)

 

Yes actually you are right but maybe in the future this can be the used very often and popular in internet.

 

I believe people rather register their domains in a new or alternate gTLD or ccTLD rather than having whatever-i-am-writing-here-oh-damn-it.com