Which domain is better? Separated by '-' or '--'

I was wondering whether which domain is better ?

1. --http://www.my-domain.com
2. --http://www.my--domain.com

I want to know:

a. How does search engines considers them, especially google
b. Is the second one been considered same weightage as first one.?
c. Any other Advantage/disadvantge ?

Thanks in advance

 

I would stick with one dash - it may come a time in the future that search engines just block everything with double dashes due to spam... as I have seen a growth in those domains although it is normally spammers and cybersquatters that engage in double dash domains.

Also, legal implications of domain-one and domain--one would suggest that the double dash is deliberately acting in bad faith at trying to use domain-one name...

Just my opinion though, stick with one dash and it would be better for the long term.

 

I have worked with a UK finance domain which had '--' in the past, it has given me high ranking in google serps (even 3rd place for 'secured loan' kw). Still I am maintaining good positions in MSN and yahoo because there was no spamming involved.
So at that time I felt there was something behind this domain (I mean some advantages)

 

I think you are better off with the single hyphen domain. Domains with 2 or more hyphens might indicate a lower-quality or spam-ridden site to the search engines as a result of which they might reduce the rankings of the site.

 

Think it is pretty obvious... (1)

Domain name isn’t so important for rankings. Rather go with something that your users can remember, two hyphens could get complicated.

 

I can agree to this if you could provide some articles / discussions supporting to this..

 

I doubt there's much difference in terms of the SERPs, indexing and how a serach engine views the keywords in the domain. IMO -- looks spammy though and may give this impression to other webmasters and surfers.

 

I totally agree with MattUK, it LOOKS spammy, and thus you shouldn't use double hyphen domains

 

What about mydomain.com. If you're serious, you'll get that.

Don't know much about SEO, but hyphens aren't what people type in. Why would anyone want two of them in a row?

Doing a Google search for a highly competitive keyword ("loan") turns up no results for hyphenated domain names in the top 100, only 2 Sponsored links (note: in a search for "loans "-loans" turns up once in the first 100 results: c-loan.com, which has been around for a number of years). There are no results for double hyphens in either.

 

Brett Tabke quoted the following:

 

Interesting does that apply to blue-widgets.com or is that okay?

 

From the discussion it was the hypen in the domain name and not the pages. blue-widget.com would be lower quality than bluewidgets.com and the more hypens used the lower it goes i.e. blue-widgets-for-darren.com

 

I can understand the theory behind that, though surely the effect would only be negligable for domains with one hyphen, there are thousands of quality sites that use one in the URL.

 

I totally agree Matt and yes there are plenty of quality sites that use one hyphen in the url which leaves me to think the quality factor is slim between no hypen and one being used but lowers for every instance being used there after. I have a site that uses two hypens and ranks very well against some very active forums.

 

One hyphen would be better, but you should remember that humans who want to directly go to your site might be confused by typing 2 hyphens.

 

I think

http://www.mydomain.com --- Best
http://www.my-domain.com --- Good
http://www.my--domain.com --- Not bad

So go for one dash if it is not available without dash.

 

I would avoid double dashes (at least my--domain.com, my-domain-name.com isn't as bad) completely - at best, it will look like you aren't creative enough to find a good name. at worst, people will remember the domain without the extra dash, and youll give your traffic to a different site.

 

Use what you have -- single hyphen, double hyphen or no hyphen -- they won't matter afaik.

 

Thanks for your inputs!

If I have a --http://www.my--domain.com can I make this domain equally competent with --http://www.mydomain.com and --http://www.my-domain.com covering all the seo factors.

 

ya, anything can be possible provided you have quality content and backlinks to your site.