Domain Name Usage

[peor]

Hi

I was wondering whether it was possible to find out how many times a domain name (that does not belong to me) has been used?

Thanks

 

[mole]

Welcome peor. Technically no. If there is a website there, you could try asking the webmaster.

 

[peor]

Thanks for that.

I just wanted to know as I was hoping to use a 2 worded domain name but didn't want it to be confused with the hyphenated version who are in the same business and was hoping to find out if they got many hits on it.

 

[Zoobar]

Check alexa for traffic

http://www.alexa.com

The lower the number the better.

 

[peor]

Sorry, what are the rankings actually telling me?

Just looked on Alexa and as the domain name seems to forwarded to their site, I think it shows the ranking for the domain name of the site itself. Is this right?

 

[Zoobar]

Rankings will be for targeted site.

Sounds like you are wondering whether to pick up the non hyphenated name to pick up any type-in traffic it may generate or to sell to the owner of the hypenated name.

Without more information cant help you beyond this

 

[peor]

Not quite. I have the unhyphenated versions of the domain name in extensions co.uk and com and a competitor has the hyphenated version, once again in the co.uk and com. I was worried that if I was to advertise my domains, there may be a lot of people typing in the hyphenated version thinking they had come to my site but in fact are on my competitors. I was trying to find out how many people use this domain now to get an idea of whether it would be a good idea to advertise or not.

Does that make sense?

We wouldn't sell our name and I am pretty sure our competitors wouldn't either.

 

Its more likely to have impact the other way round - if they advertise the hyphenated domains you'll get the spillover.

think about the multiword domains you've seen promoted by large companies - how many used hyphens?

People compound words without the hyphens, thats why they are worth more for resale and why they get more type ins than hyphenateds which only really have a role for seo.

 

[Whois-Search]

use http://www.archive.org

 

[Zoobar]

If your competitors have the hyphenated names I wouldn't worry about advertising your non-hyphenated names. Very, very, rarely will a user type in a hyphenated version of a name to see whats there, especially if the non-hyphenated name has what they are looking for/quality content.

 

[peor]

Thanks for the replies.
I couldn't get much out of http://www.archive.org, maybe I wasn't using it correctly.
I understand the comments about unhyphenated being better but my boss needs facts and figures! He doesn't want our competitors gaining anything, as the competition is quite fierce.