here are a few examples: vanilla-chocolate.com or vanillachocolate.com tea-cup.com or teacup.com modemrouting.com or modem-routing.com if there is registered site youdady.com LEt's assume some unknown site. is it a good idea to get youdadys.com domain for yourself?
if they are all available, I would buy them all and use the one with the '-' in the name..... search engines tend to treat the '-' as a space, and the site might obtain better keyword searches... redirect the other domain names to the main site...
FikseGTS makes a good point. MSN particularly tends to treat many conjoined words differently in the SERPS when two words are entered..., although they are getting better at defining. I think domains without heipens are better to be honest, they look more professional, and I also think that less weight is put on the actual domain name now than ever before, even by MSN.
Try and avoid the domain with '-'. Go for the ones without hyphens, they look more professional. In case of a singular and plural domain choice, I would suggest to go for both and redirect one to the another.
i think, that better site name is name as your product or company name. For example, if your company/product named “vanillachocolateâ€, then you must prefer site name without hyphens. But if your company named “vanilla-chocolate†you must prefer site name with “-â€.
Get both, with and without the hyphen. Use whichever one is easier for your visitors and the other to 301 redirect to the first. Do NOT leave one open for someone else to register and steal your traffic.
I'd get both of them. what about youdady.com to youdadys.com example? I wouldnt bother, even though i doubt someone would sue you, you can get sued for really stupid things.. (like microsoft.com sueing mikerowsoft.com) =]