Which domain would you go for? With hyphens or without?

SilverKnight

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Suppose, you just purchased two domains. For the sake of an example, we will use BHW name. You purchased black-hat-world.com and blackhatworld.com. black-hat-world.com is ALREADY ranking in G for a few keywords. Whereas, blackhatworld.com was only being used as a redirect to black-hat-world.com.

Now, most of us (including me) prefer blackhatworld.com instead of black-hat-world.com. So what to do now? Should I continue using black-hat-world.com as the primary domain? Or should I start using blackhatworld.com as a primary domain and redirect black-hat-world.com to it?

If both domains were new (or not ranking) then I could have just easily made the choice of using the one without the hyphens. But in this case, the one with the hyphens is ranking pretty good. Will it affect rankings negatively if I start using black-hat-world.com as a redirect to blackhatworld.com?

What would you do if you were at my place?
 
that one ^


or even better: buy bhw.com and redirect both domains to it.

Black-hat-world.com currently holds first page rankings for 5 main keywords. Are you sure redirecting this domain to the other won't hurt its rankings?
 
Black-hat-world.com currently holds first page rankings for 5 main keywords. Are you sure redirecting this domain to the other won't hurt its rankings?

Rankings will probably drop at first, however you'll get them back in no time. I would do it if I were you.
 
Yes, avoid hyphens and you would be safe from a future algo update hat targets multiple hyphens in domains.
 
Yes, avoid hyphens and you would be safe from a future algo update hat targets multiple hyphens in domains.

I totally agree with finnishfiesta as future updates can hammer hypen EMDs
 
I'd prefer without hyphens domain. 301 redirect to bhw.com and you're good to go.
 
It's not an EMD.

I'm just really worried about losing rankings if I make black-hat-world.com a redirect to blackhatworld.com.

What is the SEO friendly way of redirecting black-hat-world.com to blackhatworld.com?
 
I'm just really worried about losing rankings if I make black-hat-world.com a redirect to blackhatworld.com.

no need to worry

What is the SEO friendly way of redirecting black-hat-world.com to blackhatworld.com?

301 redirect
 
It's not an EMD.

I'm just really worried about losing rankings if I make black-hat-world.com a redirect to blackhatworld.com.

What is the SEO friendly way of redirecting black-hat-world.com to blackhatworld.com?

If your concerns are just redirecting your old domain to new then use 301 Redirect. Its the Safes way to redirect a domain to a new one. There is no risk of ranking loss. You might get a temp shock of 2-5 days but eventually it will get back to normal.
 
If your concerns are just redirecting your old domain to new then use 301 Redirect. Its the Safes way to redirect a domain to a new one. There is no risk of ranking loss. You might get a temp shock of 2-5 days but eventually it will get back to normal.

Neither domain here is new. Both were created 15 days apart and a year ago. Blackhatworld.com (the one currently being redirected to black-hat-world) was created 15 days before black-hat-world.com (which is currently ranking on 1st page for 5 keywords).
 
After reading the conversation of this thread, do all seo experts agree that redirecting black-hat-world.com to the other domain won't hurt its rankings?
 
Choice is simple. Just imagine how Face-book.com domain would look like.
 
After reading the conversation of this thread, do all seo experts agree that redirecting black-hat-world.com to the other domain won't hurt its rankings?

Yes! It won't Hurt (Unless your other domain where you are redirecting have no bad backlink history). Personal Experience :)
 
It really doesnt matter, both works fine for me.
 
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