Domain Name With or Without Hyphens?

Glad you enjoyed it! We're making regular updates as we learn more and as search engines tweak their algorithms.

In most cases, I would stick with the non-hyphenated domain name for everything. The search engines are smart enough to discern what your name means, in most cases. The only time I would insert a hyphen is if, as explained in the article, the name could be mistaken for something else (ie. experts-exchange.com (expert's exchange) vs expertsexchange.com (expert sex change)

Hi Chef Rick,

I recommend you stick with ChickenPaprikash.com (un-hyphenated). Google is good at splitting words, and the un-hyphenated version has an advantage when it comes to type-in traffic, word of mouth marketing, etc.

The reason you're not showing up on the front page of Google is mostly likely due to the fact that it's much more difficult to rank in Google for certain keyword phrases than it is on Yahoo or Bing. With time, you'll get up there. Try to focus on creating unique and relevant content for your users. Your time is spent more wisely here than it is worrying about backlinks.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

You're absolutely correct. Some studies we've done since writing this article show that keywords in the domain name do have a considerable effect. This is probably so that people searching for company names can find what they're looking for. Competition definitely plays a role (highly competitive keywords are very difficult to rank for, even if you have all the exact keywords in your URL), but for less competitive keyword phrases we notice a boost in rankings when those keyword phrases are present in the domain name.

You should also take into account type-in traffic to your website. This is from visitors typing your domain name directly into their address bar. This is particularly relevant for domain names that are short, simple, and generic (ie. dictionary words), or that have a very high search volume.

[Ed: 2011 update: Google has been adjusting their algorithms to place less emphasis on keywords in domain names.]

You bring up a really good point, thanks for sharing your insights. We're glad you ended up with a domain name that you're able to market more readily.

As you mention, a key factor that should be considered, especially if you don't plan on getting the majority of your traffic from search engines, is how easy it will be to market your domain name verbally. Tell a friend, over the phone, the domain name of your website, and without asking them to specifically do so, see if they remember it the next day.

While a .com is easier to remember than a .net (most people default to trying .com), in certain cases it may be that a hyphenated .com domain name, as you point out, is even more difficult to remember than a .net domain. The best way to test this theory is to try it out on a small group of people and see if there's an obvious difference.

The fact that there are more search results pages of domain names without hyphens merely suggests that there's more domain names without hyphens out there. Google's series of algorithm updates over the years suggest that they are neutral about the presence of hyphens.

This makes sense considering the saturation of the domain name market. Just because a company is unable to obtain an unhyphenated domain name, doesn't mean they should be subject to punishment by the search engines.

There are plenty of other factors that determine how sites are ranked. Don't spend your time worrying about whether or not your domain name has hyphens for ranking purposes. More important is whether people will remember to insert the hyphen when they type your website name into their address bar.

That's a good question. That would honestly depend on the specific keywords you're talking about. For example, I like eDigest.com better than Electronic-Digest.com, but Blue-Widget.com better than eBlueWidget.com. In general, I would go with the hyphen unless the "e" really makes sense or is semantically part of the keyword phrase (ie. if it is short for "electronic" or a similar keyword).

Country coded domain name extensions (ccTLD's = Country-Coded Top Level Domains) really come into play outside of the United States. In the U.S., the .com extension predominates and is preferred over .us. However, elsewhere in the world, usually the country coded extension is preferred, especially for local businesses.

It all depends on your business model. If you are catering to customers worldwide, and are not associating yourself with a specific country, try and get a .com domain. If, on the other hand, you are associating yourself with a particular country or have a large customer base in a particular country, consider registering the country-coded domain extension for that country (ie. example.ch for Switzerland). If you do go with the country-coded extension, it's not a bad idea to get the .com variant as well, if possible, to help protect your brand.

I would have to agree. It makes no sense to me that a domain name would be penalized for any reason, other than maybe containing adult keywords (in which case it will probably simply be re-categorized, not penalized - ie. it will be more difficult to place in non-adult search results).

The fact is, the domain name market is like a hugely over-bloated and saturated real estate market right now. Domain names are slim pickin's, so I would think search engines would concentrate more on website content and less on domain name keywords.

Look up the term latent semantic index and then remember the following:

• 2-3 keywords or phrases max per page to "optimize" for.
• Include them in the H1, Title, Description, Keywords and first sentence of the content.
• Include the latent semantic keywords (the words that normally appear on a page that has a specific keyword already).
• Break your PPC (pay per click) keywords up along the same lines as your narrowly targeted content.