Are there Times when a Hyphen Makes Sense?

[Duke]

Most of us know that hyphens detract a great deal from domain name value. However there are some terms in English that are normally expressed with a hyphen. For example, in one of my focus fields, media, Radio-TV is always shown that way in print, rather than RadioTV. (A lot of major broadcast companies own radio-tv combos and it is expressed that way).

So www.radio-tv.com would be more accurate English than www.radiotv.com. The same is true of individual station call letters. It is WABC-TV, not WABCTV for example. Would you still throw out the hyphen since people on the web are accustomed not to typing one (and you have that whole verbal thing to deal with - explaining a dash or hyphen goes here.)

 

[jberryhill]

A good domain name is one which can be unambigously conveyed by saying it in a radio commercial.

IMHO, hyphens are only good as a backup if you have the non-hyphenated version.

On the other hand, once in a while, the absence of a hyphen can lead to amusing results if people read the name wrong. For example, if you ran a busines in the UK called the "united federation", you might well consider UF-UK rather than UFUK.

 

[Duke]

if you ran a business in the UK called the "united federation", you might well consider UF-UK rather than UFUK. [/B]

:laugh: Good point!

I would lean to the non-hyphen too as it always difficult in speech to get that character across. In the Radio-TV example it is taken in all extensions in both versions, hyphenated and non (I actually took the last one available Radio-TV.us last spring. One day I'd like to do a guide to American broadcasting stations on it).

 

[system0]

in basic terms
hypens make a domain harder to brand but domains with a hypen - eg www.tennis-ball.com will be picked up by the search engines better because some se find it easier to separate the keywords with the hyphen in place

 

[Duke]

That's true. If I had any of these five word names I think I would always put the hyphens in as search engines are and hyperlinks are the only way people would get there anyway. No one is going to type in one of those monsters.

 

[DomainPairs]

I bought some domains where the hyphen replaces a vowel when the word is socialy unacceptable. I'm going to try this as an experiment because this is the way many boards require them to be written.

It seemed a cheap way to get some good sex names.

 

[DotComster]

it's also good between 2 words that can "merge" or just look funny as without the space. It's also good between a word that ends in the same letter than the second one starts with.

BUT - hyphens are still not valuable for resale. I do like them for development and promotion however.

 

[peter]

looks good in a few phrases

 

[adoptabledomains]

I agree to have one for resale is normally useless, unless to make the value of the non-dashed version higher defensively.

I do think they are very valuable to some people when you have the non-dashed version. there fore you can pronounce a name without it, and use the dashed version for only printed matter to make it easier to read. With the dashed version parked on the non dashed a multi word or repeated letter domain is easier to read. For example, meterreading.com has the repeated letter "R" that could be confused. by also having meter-reading.com pointed to the same site it looks better in printed matter.

I have seen some people think they were really getting something by registering something like s-c-u-b-a.com which is an acronym. Just try verbalizing this or typeing it for that matter. This is awful. I have also seen a few domains like photo-camera-film-pictures-developing.com which I think are on the theory of search engine keyword selection. I don't know if they work, but I think the engines are pretty smart at finding words. If I needed a name like crashit.com I would definitely want and market the dashed crash-it.com version so the search engines didn't get confused as to with another 4 letter word it contains. (unless I sold fertilizer made from crayfish excrement )

In general, if you need it register it. But not for speculation.

 

[DotComster]

To add confustion to this thread:

E-I-E-I-O.com is a very nice sounding domains that just doesn't work without those 4 hyphens. EIEIO.com just looks silly.