I read the forums and people put a - between words in the url. I want to know for example if stockforum.com and stock-forum.com would rank the same within the search engine.
stock-forum has a slight SEO advantage over stockforum, all other factors being equal. But from a human perspective: don't put dashes in domain names, it's asking for trouble: people can't talk on the phone about your URL, people are likely to forget which dash was in there etc. I do use dashes in file names, but I would never recommend them in URL's.
the problem is that the urls I want the main name is taken. Thats weid I would think id the dash is in the url it would hurt and not be better.
My take on dashes. If you are branding a domain name and getting return visitors is a key part in the websites success then stay away from dashes. If you are just after search engine traffic to come to your site and click an add and could care less if they comeback (chances are they wont keep coming to your site to cllick ads anyways) then go dash happy.
its not about ad clicking since it would be a forum most people would prob save it in the favorite if they like that site. I just wanted to know due to I found the url i want but I need to put a dash in so I wanted to know if it would hurt me but it seems it wont.
It wont hurt you in terms of the search engine. But it could cause people not to remember the site. Personally I would go with the dash. I made a successfull forum with one dash and didnt seem to have any problem at all.