Hyphens in domain names.

Hi,

Does hyphens in a domain name have a positive or negative affect on google SERPS?

For example, will eliassorensen.com have a better SERP than elias-sorensen.com?

If my partners link to a site with hypens like:
<a href="http://elias-sorensen.com">Elias Sorensen</a> would it then be good?

Thanks in advance.

 

I think it depends on how the search phrase is used. For instance for eliassorensen then the domain eliassorensen.com would have a higher ranking. If the search was elias-sorensen then elias-sorensen.com would be better. I'm not sure about a search for elias sorensen without the hypen.

I've registered a eliassorensen.com like domain before and had that rank higher for the search term eliassorensen than elias-sorensen. Hope that makes sense.

 

Going without the hyphens is much better for SEO. Hyphens aren't necesarily bad I don't think but if you have really long hyphonated urls Google seems to think its a bit spammy - basically a form of keyword stuffing.

 

I have never used them before until a few days ago. I asked around and I got varied opinions. Some say good for SEO and some say does not matter. I have not had anyone who said they were bad for SEO. Hyphens are read by Google as a stop. So in my domain, it is http://credit-debt-finance.com .

Google should read it as three separate words with a pause in between. I will see what happens in the coming months.

 

Hyphens are viewed as word separators, although I am more inclined to go with exact match domains.

 

The only time the hyphen will matter for SEO is if multiple (unintended) keywords can be extracted from the domain name. Experts Exchange is a wonderful example of this. Do you think they'd want to have the keywords "Expert Sex Change" pulled out of their domain name? I don't think so either. Hence their use of the hyphen in the domain name www.experts-exchange.com

 

That's a good example Dan Schulz.

 

It used to be somewhat important, but I'm not sure if it is now that every decent domain name is gone. You'd think that Google would have to lessen it's importance if all that's left are domain names with hyphens.

 

I am going to use a little Dr Spock like logic here

See Google guidelines RE the hyphens after the .com/ part - link to such here> http://tvworlds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=317

So logic would say the same thing applies to actual domain names - does it not seem going by what Google have to say that it stands to reason the same thing would apply when it comes to making the SE's job easier before the .com or other tld part?