Domain names with dashes - penalized?

Keywestluvr · Nov 6, 2008

I was wondering what the consensus was on domain names with dashes. Are they penalized over those without dashes? I have seen one ebook that says they are not but I thought I would ask around BHW.

This is a pretty targeted niche.

I have found a 2 keyword domain that gets over 300k searches a month in the niche I am entering. I can get it with a dash. XXXXX-XXX.tv Sound good?

Can also get a .info name two keywords with a dash that get 165k searches a month. XXXXX-XXXX.info

Also a 6 letter keyword domain that is xxxxxx.me extremely targeted for the product with over 246K searches per month.

Ive had good luck so far with .infos any thoughts on .tv, .me, and .mobi ???

Thanks yall!

:cowboy:

sqlbyte · Nov 6, 2008

No, why would they be penalized, i don't see logical reason.

blazen · Nov 6, 2008

No they are not penalized. This is pretty old.

mattstrike · Nov 6, 2008

It is really hard to say. In the most generic sense, I don't believe that dashes make any difference, although if you are competing against a very similar domain without the dashes, it is possible that big G might give weight to the non dashed domain under the operative theory that it is the more mature, although I would guess that domain age would be the more likely way they would go.

If you are confident about the content you are going to put up, and have your back link strategy in place, then I would say to go for it.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

blazen · Nov 6, 2008

mattstrike said:
It is really hard to say. In the most generic sense, I don't believe that dashes make any difference, although if you are competing against a very similar domain without the dashes, it is possible that big G might give weight to the non dashed domain under the operative theory that it is the more mature, although I would guess that domain age would be the more likely way they would go.

If you are confident about the content you are going to put up, and have your back link strategy in place, then I would say to go for it.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

I have domains with dashes ranking for popular keywords that beat the ones without dashes.

snowwhite · Nov 6, 2008

no such thing
dashes are even use for seo purposes
use it to separate words making it SE readable
just limit it to 2 per domain

Allnightlong · Nov 6, 2008

Actually, domains with dashes are even better than those without.

Yeah yeah, I know. I always thoght they were even at least, too. But check out what google has to say about this:

http://google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=76329

edit: This is only valid for SEO purposes, if you want people to remember your domain, go for urls without dashes.

mattstrike · Nov 6, 2008

Good link Allnightlong, although I think it applies more to what comes after the domain than the domain itself, still. . .

I think that the bottom line is that .com domains with no dashes, etc. are better for domain flipping (higher perception of value) but for SEO, it really makes no difference, the key, as always is content and inbound links.

viewsonic · Nov 7, 2008

i would never trust what google says, they have been busted numerous times doing social engineering redirects.

Before google started the missspell suggestions i use to make thousands/month just off all the dumbass's who would type in a two word phrase without a space ie.

"freeporn" = 1million searchs a day!!!

if you buy a domain like freepornwhatever.com it is so easy to SEO just for that missspell because the domain matchs the misspell. and google parse out the two keywords anyway, so that negates the need for hypons

if you include a hypon you miss easy traffic & your resell value of your domain & site is heaps less. Its super easy to SEO for stuff like this because of all the google fanboys who believe everything they have to say never thing of it

this is a $5,000+/mnth idea, there are thousands of high volume no space missspells there for the taking.

Allnightlong said:
Actually, domains with dashes are even better than those without.

Yeah yeah, I know. I always thoght they were even at least, too. But check out what google has to say about this:

http://google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=76329

edit: This is only valid for SEO purposes, if you want people to remember your domain, go for urls without dashes.

Keywestluvr · Nov 7, 2008

Thanks yall! I pretty much thought it wouldn't really matter for my purposes. I really appreciate everyone's input. I will try them out.

:cowboy:

paper_chase · Nov 17, 2008

There is no law that penalizes the use of dashes.....It is just another convenient way to get the domain name of your interest.

tekg0r · Nov 17, 2008

afaik dashes are not penalized in SERPs.

They _ARE_ penalized in ad networks. Yahoo in particular will not serve ads on many domains with dashes or if they do and you do some volume, they will ban the domain.

rightstart · Nov 17, 2008

Absolutely not penalized.

1. The closer to your targeted keyword the better, hyphen or not (most important factor for SEO).
2. Best domains (in this order; obviously SEO organic purposes) .com, .net, .org

This has been my experience, at least.

RightStart

WickednDivine · Nov 17, 2008

I have a few with 3 dashes, all of them are indexed, but none of them rank very well on google (though i'm all over the first page of yahoo for some reason)

booman · Nov 17, 2008

No they are not, and quite frankly you can get them to rank for just about anything that the non-hyphenated would. I have several domains that also rank for words that have nothing to do with the hyphenated domain name. It's all about how you SEO the pages...

java · Nov 17, 2008

By the replies it seems pretty obvious that dashes don't matter, and my domains with dashes also rank well.

viewsonic · Nov 18, 2008

guys hypens are penalized, because you are missing out on traffic. Read my post above again. I had a shit load of money off this miss-understanding

Domain names with dashes - penalized?

Keywestluvr

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sqlbyte

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blazen

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mattstrike

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