my-domain-name.com vs thedomainname.com

So I got a pretty simple question:
What's the best, placing 'the' infront of your domain name or useing dashes to separate the words?

thanks in advance

I would choose the keyword with "the" in front. I have read that its a bit harder to rank sites with dashes in the domain. You can also put a word after the KW. Such as keyworddeals.com, etc.

i personaly chosee "the" in front . And yes is a little harder ranking domains with dashes .

I've seen domain with like domain--name ranking in #1

What about "thekeyword" compared to adding random letters on the end...like "keywordx" or "keywordhq"?

I dont think it matters much, as long as you have the keyword in there.

Google considers dashes as spam. I mean, having a domain "like-me.com" it's fine but "come-and-like-me-now.com" it's spam.

Also, instead of using thedomainname, use idomainname or edomainname.

I would not go with dashes for me they do not have any good effect anymore

google considers anything in the front of the domain name more important. therefore, i would put additional letters or words on the end.

Use a word at the end of your domain.

I would not recommend to use dashes in domain, It is harder to rank high on SERP.

Have any of you guys tested this???

It is not any harder to rank a domain with dashes. I have a bunch of them on the first page and I have not found any difference in how hard it is to rank them. There are some disadvantages though.

1. If you use dashes nobody is going to remember to type those in later on. If it is the kind of site where you are going to want return visitors then it will be much harder to "brand" your site.

2. While Google does not seem to care about the dashes people do. I have found that one does not really make a measurable difference but that if there are two or more you will get less clicks from the same ranking position. This means that even though you rank the site fine you will get less traffic than normal.


As far as putting "the" in front of your keyword again the difference that it can make as opposed to adding another stop word at the end is so small I have never been able to tell the difference. The big thing is to have your keyword somewhere in the url.

Personally I believe the emd thing has been way oversold. While it is nice it is not that much harder to rank a site with no keyword in the domain name, the important thing is to get it somewhere in the url. Do random searches and see how many sites rank for multiple keywords with none of them in the domain name. Most of the results you see do not have the keyword in the domain name at all.

If you are good at SEO, I will use dash. You may see image:



#1 for high competition KW (with dash)

I also have a website that ranks 1 with 2 dashes..

I have many domains with keywords in it and I can say that the best thing is to have and exact math domain name even if it is .info .bz .ws or any other TLD.

If you can't get exact match domain name then there is no difference if you add a dashes or the or random characters. You will rank the same way. But domains without dashes looks less spammy for visitors

BTW: I have one website that ranks for 120k search term in #1 with 3 dashes in domain but it looks crappy in SERPS

dashes are not bad all. It is a myth that dashes are not good for seo. One important thing is the 'first word of the domain name' any day a domain-name.com is better than thedomainname.com

apart from that everything depends on how well you optimize your site, get relevant backlinks, your vistors' behavior (bounce rate, time spend, internal navigation).. if you have all these things right, then you will get the top 4 spots for sure.

All the best

what if i put keyword1andkayword2.com? is that bad or good?

All depends on site quality.
If you have a content quality you can rank also a domain 3----3.com

My preferred method is to use a number at the end of the domain name. It has had good results for me. I generally use "411" or "911" added to the backend of the keyword phrase.

I hava a website with the in front of main keyword and I outranked everybody.. even a guy which had the exact keyword with .com. I had the in fron and .org so everything is possible.. Just use your SEO skills and you should rank for everykeyword out there

I would go with additional keywords. Thanks .