I've always had words in my domain name seperated with a hyphen (-) because I remember reading somewhere that it's the best way to let google see them as separate words. I've also always been under the impression that this is good for SEO purposes. Is this good practice or does anyone disagree?
it's absolutely not a good idea unless all the probabilities have gone, for example i won't type digital-point, people always first try digitalpoint without hyphen one.
google can even understand words when they are joint i think googles system is pretty strong when it comes to read domain names..
I have seen several examples where Google identifies a hyphen separate words as one word, especially if that word is very commonly used in everyday life. Hence I would avoid using hyphens just to separate the words and would look to use it only when I am not able to get my desired keyword. Regards, RightMan
no hyphen (over all) is best for google. according to everything i have read. i think underscore is possible too
Underscore is only possible for subdomain, not for domains. But you are totally right, no hypen is normally better from the Google/SEO point of view. Since a domain shouldn't consist of too many words anyway, legibility isn't much of an issue for visitors.
from the monetary point of view, hypenated words/phrase are never higher in estibot value estimation in comparison to their corresponding unhypenated words/phrase. CMIIW.
Another good reason NOT to use a hyphen is if you plan on the site working in foreign countries as punctuation does not always translate well, specually if you are providing phone support etc.
Like all the people I don't recommend taking one. However, if you can't find any other domain name you like with the keywords in it make sure your only use one hyphen. Make sure your domain name is short and good readable. Domain names with hyphens can actually to really good if you are able to find short ones like i-phone.com, e-book.com, portrait-photography are not that bad. but don't go for get-instant-loan.com or too-long-sentence-here.com branding is really important when choosing a domain name, so people shouldn't get confused when they type in your domain name. Is it easy to remember or was it full of hyphens and did they forgot about it? Good luck.
wow - i dont know where you read USING HYPHENS I GOOD - this is like RULE #1 when getting a domain name!...i would change the site you learning from..DP IS THE SHIZ-NIT!
Thanks a lot, the general agreement is definitely no hyphens, so now I can buy my domain knowing that I chose the right option.
It's only useful in special cases. For example if you register penisland.tld, but it's about pens, then use hyphen (pen-island.tld).
In terms of Google, having hyphens is only useful if your keywords can be mistaken.. And even that is partially a thing of the past.. For example kings-and-castles.com would definitely be 'kings and castles'... Whearas kingsandcastles.com may be mistaken for 'king sand castles'.. However, like I said, this is kind of obsolete.. Google will recognise the content on your page and work it out.. Chuckun