Hyphen domains....

I'm considering buying a domain, mainly to do a web forum and promote other sites that I have via the co-op network on it.

Which is best?
www.my-web-forum.com
www.mywebforum.com

Ok if I buy both and host only 1 which one should I host?

Thanks Ian

 

If it was me I would buy/host the domain "without" the hyphens. For me, it's much easier to remember/type.

 

I would tend buy both if they are really close and you're going for a branding with your domain name... if the domain name contained search terms, I would use hyphenated, otherwise probably not (it's a judgement call at the end of the day... I use www.hypnosisaudiocds.com because I think www.hypnosis-audio-cds.com would look rubbish and is clumsy to type, but www.online-hypnosis.org works ok IMO and online hypnosis is a well searched for term).

 

Most people tend either to use the hyphen or the subdirectory approach for keyword rich URLs.

As long as the keyword is not too long, I don't think hyphen is going to look out of place either.

In brief, I'd prefer the first URL.

 

without. i think most search engines are starting to see words in domains even without the hyphens, plus (especially with a forum) I would never sacrifice a well branded and easy to remember domain name for the very very marginal impact of URL keywords...

 

UPDATE....

I've had to opt for the version with the hyphans as the one without is not available, plus it's not being hosted...so good news here....

I've not wanted to check the domain's before I was sure to go with this project, call me paranoid but I always think that if you put a domain name in domain name checker and don't follow up with a order for some reason it will get flaged and someone else will buy it.....lol

...yes paranoid!!!

Ian

 

Yes, search engines are smarter now, you no longer have to rub things in their faces.

 

And based on the worst URLs thread you may actually get two for the price of one as there is evidence in that thread that things can be read more than one way if you split up the letters in different ways to form different words.

 

Don't laugh... (I see one, yes you!)

We are travel agent since... wow, I started the first "electronic" travel agency in "sub-sahara" Africa in mid 1985 (before that we had retired people flying with briefcases full of paper tickets) that does'nt make me younger and I'm still learning!

Well talking about hyphen... in 2001 we registered vp-travel.com coz our Agency name VeroPierre.com didn't feel travel on the net.

I wanted "VP - Travel" not vptravel coz it was not clear enough for me...

Few months later, I got 1 email... asking me to look at vp-travel.com, a neat discusting porn site... the offer was buy it for $10G or "I'll keep it online"... well, we negotiated for $5K... few week later... got the same type of email for vptravel.com.... ... I gave up... coz there was vptravel.net and much more. At $5,000 each...

Bottom line... don't let phony people put stinky stuff next to you. Get everything next to your name with or without "-" ($5.99, it's what I pay now and I'm not the best at it) and forward to the one you host.

Regarding which one to host... there are plenty of well informed to help you.

 

I was never able to get a definitive answer to this, so one of my sites is fitness-health-beauty.com while another is profitcourse.com
Probably very difficult to define unless you have two sites with exactly the same content except for hyphens.

Tony