Domain names and SEO

Do any of you have experience with the differences between hyphenated vs non-hyphenated domain names when it comes to SERPS?

Does it even matter? Especially if it means a .com versus something else?

Thanks

Rick

 

If tons of people are linking to you with just your domain name, the hyphen is better since Google treats this as a space. But since most people would link to you with your site's name, not domain, as the anchor text, it doesn't really matter.

 

Even if there are no hyphens or spaces google will highlight the terms in the domain name that match the search query. Long hyphenated names are more likely to be flagged as spam from my experience. I tend to just stick with a name that relates to the topic of the site, and that is short and easy to remember.

 

Thanks for all the quick replies.

Another question though. Couldn't I just get another shorter domain and redirect to the longer keyword rich hyphenated one?

edit: Ok this is what I mean. The main site would be a long hyphenated domain name but any marketing/emails could use ashorter "branded non-hyphenated name" to avoid spam filters. Would this work

Would this help in the Serps?

Thanks

Rick

 

Rule of thumb is that if you grab no hyphens domain with the same keywords. Just use it. As far as Google is concerned i do not think one format has any advantage over other format... You know google is SMART lol

 

It would work, but i'm not sure that either way would help or hurt you. The domain name alone isn't going to filter your domain as spam, it's just something they may or may not take into account in their overall ranking algorithm. Are you expecting mainly traffic from search engines, or are you marketing toward word of mouth and branding? If you are just doing search marketing the hyphenated name is likely fine. If you expect people to remember your domain and come back to it I would use a non hyphenated name. I hope that helps.

 

Yes thank you 1EightT

 

Either can be effective. the one biggest thing that makes term + generic better in my mind is how google search suggest currently function. Though if they change to being more like yahoo search suggest that would put it back at nearly even...