Question re hyphens in mainstream urls
 

OK, say I have a product, called 'abcde' and I want to sell it online.

Lets say I cant get abcde.com but i can get
buyabcde.com
purchaseabcde.com
getabcde.com

And I can also get...

buy-abcde.com
purchase-abcde.com
get-abcde.com

Aside from the fact that I would buy all of them... Which would be the 'premium' urls? With or without the hyphen?

Opinions please :)

for typeins: no hyphens.
for seo: doesn't matter.

hyphens = worthless :2 cents:

Thing is, unlike porn names, the urls will be used on leaflets, print ads in local newspapers etc... It wont all be online.

I have read that for the online hyphens dont matter for seo...
But I am curious as to which one you would run in print? Simply because it would make sense to put the hyphen in print, to make it easier to read, but would the hyphen get 'lost' when they see it in print, and then type it in?

Buy both. Problem solved.

when I see a hyphenated domain name it does not give me confidence in the site. seems newbish.

If you are asking this and you plan to brand the URL and use it in print media you are a fucking shithead!

Ever heard of i-b-m.com?

face-bo-ok.com?

You even have to ask this?

no hyphens

how about if your company name is Pen Island? it makes sense to have pen-island.com for that, hyphens make a lot of sense, it is too bad that somehow a stigma got attached to having hyphens in names, because there are many cases where separating the keywords makes for much greater readability

here are a bunch of names that would benefit from hyphens

http://www.pcmemoirs.com/2010/06/02/...-domain-names/

The search term in the URL is still a factor... but not nearly as important as it used to be.

Think of it like the Page Title: If a User types in "BestBuy".
Domain BestBuy.com Would match Better than Best-Buy.com because the search string is a single word.

If a user types in "Best Buy"
Domains: BestBuy.com and Best-Buy.com would likely see NO Difference because the URL contains both words even though it is a 2 word Phrase.

But again, the significance in the URL is not something to stress over.

Focus on your Page Title and Meta Description and Inbound Links

how about this scenario:

user types in "big ass" in google

which site ranks higher for "big ass" all else being equal:

bigjoesautoglass.com or really-big-hot-phat-ass.com

?

or how about "coldassnow.com" vs. "cold-ass-now.com" vs. "cold-as-snow.com"

who ranks highest for a search for "cold ass"
how about "cold as snow"

hyphens got an unfair stigma I think, as it is obvious that they do make things more understandable and less ambiguous :2 cents:

I like hymens...

:1orglaugh at the responses that don't know shit about mainstream..

this is all i will say...

google is placing more emphasis on trust factor and backlinks...

when i am choosing a name, i will look for:

keyword.tld

keyword + suffix.tld

keyword-keyword.tld if its longtail...

in that order...








.

trying to decipher your list, so you are saying that if you are trying to rank for "guns" as a keyword, as an example, you would choose "guns.info" over any other keyword combo.... followed by "gunshunting.com" as a second choice, and thirdly "guns-hunting.com" as a third choice, with "huntingguns.com" further still down the list?

I agree with your list except that I would replace the word "Trust" with "Relevant" for links/back links. A link from a highly trusted automotive site won't help a hair salon regardless of it's Trust/Authority.

Also, there is Far more weight added from The Popular Vote than any amount of linking/back linking. 10,000 Trusted Authority Links will not sustain a search position on a page that people look at 1 time and never visit again.

For the URL I would expect no difference.

However for the page title... Less is more focused and therefor better.

we have a winner!

When that is an issue GotWebHost.com makes it easy to read without having to guess what gotwebhost means.

Yesterday I was also having this problem.
I'v found this http://www.guruofsearch.com/domain-n...ithout-hyphens (not a big deal).

I'm with d-null. I share his opinions.

We got another problem.
People are used to type domains with no hyphens, so we might have some problems with people that what to visit us and dont type the hypens, BUT they will note, if we have a decent webpage, that have typed wrong the domain. We must make some enforcements to put the hyphens associated with our domain - play with that fact in the logo or something like that -.

Anyway, if the domain if for adult biz, who the fuck whats to have a trusted domain?
Our clients just want to have decent and updated content, decent design and :jerkoff.
They are also aware that domains are all bought.

NOTE: i'm just a newbie.

Best regards to u all
merry christmas

(sorry for my english)

don't bother with hyphens...

Upper/lowercase mix in a URL is the best solution for readability both offline and online.

Thanks for all the input...

A good example of Upper/Lowercase use on domains, from Achmed's sig...

InternationalArmsDealer.com

:BangBang:

Having to disagree with some of the above, I will note that Google and others have repeatedly cited hyphens as the correct way of dividing words in multi-word names (the pen-island / penis-land example above hits it dead on: where is the break without the hyphen? a spider won't know...)

One idea is to map DomainName.com to Domain-Name.com.

Use the former in print . sigs, etc. but the latter as the "real" URL, for search engines, etc.