What would you say on getting a domain with a dash? Is it really that bad? I have a good domain name for a forum but it would require a dash (dam spam sites).
I have a dash in one of my top performing websites in the search engines. I feel it just acts like a space to the search engines. Neither good nor bad. Just harder to remember for consumers.
Its not bad, just not the best. Take a look at http://www.webmaster-talk.com great site, ranks well, active community, and it has a dash. Good luck.
Dash leaks some traffic to the non dash version but if you are popular they will understand their mistake when they see the non dash version
Hyphenated domains versus non hyphenated domains has been a subject debated for years now. The plain and simple truth is that in search engines it won't matter. It may matter when you are speaking to another about your domain, domain hyphen name versus domain name. Some even say hyphenated domains are good for keywords.
yes... and some "non dash" probably leak as well wouldn't you think In all fairness though you are probably right in assuming that more traffic moves one way by mistake than the other. /miko67
I get the impression that 1 dash is kool, 2 is acceptable and that 3 or more is pushing your luck, with google anyway An more than 1 dash does make it very very difficult to brand a domain name, branding is critical , i think it can reduce advertising costs
Agreed branding is critical if your building nearly any site. Dashes are what you get (2-3 at most) when the original nondashed .com is take already, and your purchasing a domain that is purely keywords. I was amazed by the number of people who search by name for an older branded site when i added G analytics to it. We're getting people every day searching for it and they have an incredible conversion rate
no dashes if you plan to have a site thats not for the search engines . . . you dont see e-bay.com or wal-mart.com . . . you get my point
it was said somewhere that SEs treat words with dashes in domaun names as separate words while words without them as a single one. Like mykeyword.com will be read as "mykeyword" and my-keyword.com as "my keyword", but look, here Google thinks that "the" in the domain name www.weather.com like separate word...
I have two - ( dash ) domains that do well very well. http://www.uni-ball.net/ http://www.waterman-pens.net/
Most do quite well in search engines, as fsmedia said search engines seem to interpret the dash as a space. Its only the remembering the dash part when trying to remember the domain off by heart that can be a pain sometimes.