To Hyphen or Not to Hyphen?

StarGazer · #1 (**permalink**) 11-23-2007, 09:28 PM

I am thinking about signing up with SBI.

Why do so many SBI sites use hyphens? Example, Race-horse-breeding.com, rather than racehorsebreeding.com?

I guess it has something to do with the keywords.

Soooo....when selecting a domain name, is it better to go with, for example, racehorsebreeding.com, or race-horse-breeding.com?

thx

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 11-23-2007, 10:18 PM

There's been a lot of debate surrounding hyphens over the years. It used to be that some SEO experts believed the hyphens helped the search engines read the keywords. Nowadays I don't think that is as much of an issue.

If I remember correctly SBI! suggests if your name is longer than two words you use hyphens just so it looks better in the browser. Yes hyphens are a pain in the butt to type but if you think about it most people will be finding you from blogs, search engines, etc. so they won't be typing your domain name in. And you can always register a non-hyphenated domain too and have it redirect to your hyphenated one for those word of mouth adverts.

AsideMichelle · #3 (**permalink**) 11-24-2007, 03:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lisa

There's been a lot of debate surrounding hyphens over the years. It used to be that some SEO experts believed the hyphens helped the search engines read the keywords. Nowadays I don't think that is as much of an issue.

If I remember correctly SBI! suggests if your name is longer than two words you use hyphens just so it looks better in the browser. Yes hyphens are a pain in the butt to type but if you think about it most people will be finding you from blogs, search engines, etc. so they won't be typing your domain name in. And you can always register a non-hyphenated domain too and have it redirect to your hyphenated one for those word of mouth adverts.

Yeah, good call. I always take both, the hyphen and un-hyphened domain, and do a re-direct.

Lajocar · #4 (**permalink**) 12-04-2007, 01:38 AM

I agree with Lisa that it does not matter if you have hyphens or no hyphens in your domain name.

From personal experience I have sites with hyphens and without that are doing very well.

mickeyy · #5 (**permalink**) 01-25-2010, 05:01 AM

In the early days Googles spider wasn't able to read keywords in a URL without the hyphens. So if your domain was getmoneyfast the spider wouldn't be able to break up the word into 3 separate keywords thus making SEO much harder. Nowadays Google's spider has evolved and is now able to read individual words without the hyphens.

sinohosting · #6 (**permalink**) 01-25-2010, 11:01 AM

I would stay away from hyphens, too spammy imho...Give me one major website which has hyphens in it...

Mr Potential · #7 (**permalink**) 01-25-2010, 03:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinohosting

I would stay away from hyphens, too spammy imho...Give me one major website which has hyphens in it...

Spam is Spam. It doesn't matter whether you have a hyphen between words or not.
Quality and creditability is quality and creditability. It doesn't matter whether you have a hyphen between words or not.

Otherwise from a visual standpoint, it probably makes little difference if you have a hyphen with one or two words, but when you get to 3 or more words, the visual ability to see the address become less clear to make the distinction between each word. Having a hyphen between multiple words the word distinction becomes much more apparent.

Also, today their are well over 2 billion parked domains, making it very difficult to have a one or two words for your website that is in alignment with your niche and is of great value to others. So today a hyphen adds another unique distinction to a web domain. Their are many very successful websites today with hyphens. You won't find many older sites, because there were so many more domain names available 10 years ago or even 5 years ago where the set of circumstances were different. One could easily find a simple one or two word url. You have to follow the trends and keep evolving with the time. Better yet build new ground.

Barupa · #8 (**permalink**) 01-25-2010, 04:29 PM

I like hyphens because it makes each word stand out, you can tell at a glance what the site is about.

mlwebco · #9 (**permalink**) 01-25-2010, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barupa

I like hyphens because it makes each word stand out, you can tell at a glance what the site is about.

Very tru. Also, a Google representative recently as a 3 months agon on their blog made a statement about the importance of hyphens. That it rank much better than "underscores" (for page file names that is). For domain names, I would go without the hyphen if the name was available (IMO), I just prefer the clean standard domain name. I think people go with hyphens only when the original name is already taken, not for added seo value.

~ ML

jpondry · #10 (**permalink**) 01-26-2010, 02:20 AM

My personal opinion consider your return visitors if your name is too long hyphen is easier to manage in terms of typing without error. Ok you say returning should have bookmarked!! Ok still at the end of the day it is what's work for human too not just the search engines.

Barupa · #11 (**permalink**) 01-26-2010, 03:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlwebco

Very tru. Also, a Google representative recently as a 3 months agon on their blog made a statement about the importance of hyphens. That it rank much better than "underscores" (for page file names that is). For domain names, I would go without the hyphen if the name was available (IMO), I just prefer the clean standard domain name. I think people go with hyphens only when the original name is already taken, not for added seo value.

~ ML

I dislike underscores because if you underline them, they don't show, so mistypes are possible.

Yes, I think we are so used to joined up words that hyphenated words are second choice, though I think they are becoming much more popular.

meanne2007 · #12 (**permalink**) 02-23-2010, 07:34 AM

as for what i've seen, every article i added to my blogs in blogger, there's always hyphen in the domains.

Mark Haigh · #13 (**permalink**) 02-27-2010, 07:23 PM

I would avoid hyphens in domain name these days (my SBI site is 3 words and hyphenated, but it was advised back then).

But as sinohosting said above, you don't see major companies doing it. So I think there is a small tendency for people to see long hyphenated domains as spammy or low quality. Short, readable, memorable and appropriate is way better than keyword stuffed.

If you want to make a non-hyphenated domain easier to read in print you can always capitalise the words, e.g. MyLongDomainName.com

ed7up · #14 (**permalink**) 03-07-2010, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Haigh

If you want to make a non-hyphenated domain easier to read in print you can always capitalise the words, e.g. MyLongDomainName.com

... and its more memorable if you capitalize the first letter of each word. I've always found it difficult sharing a site offline and having to spell it out for people. Giant long domain names packed with keywords aren't always a great idea - stick to 3 at the most!

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