Hyphen Bashing

[domainduck]

"Docupoint Secures docupoint.com Domain Name...

SUNNYVALE, California, March 27, 2003 - Docupoint today announced that it has secured the DOCUPOINT.COM domain name for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 1997, Docupoint has maintained its web presence at www.docu-point.com. Effective immediately, the company's primary web address is www.docupoint.com.

Brad Bishop, CEO and co-founder of Docupoint, said, "It's a great achievement to have finally secured the .COM address matching our company name. Our customers and prospects can now easily locate us on the web at www.docupoint.com; no dashes, no muss, no fuss."

Docupoint is a privately held company based in Sunnyvale, California specializing in Internet based Document Management Solutions for AutoCAD, including the recently released Docupoint Discovery v3.0. Discovery combines the functionality of a full text search engine, web server and DWF rendition engine into one convenient application. Docupoint Discovery is a trademark of Docupoint, AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk. "


note: Hyphens - helpful for search engines, boo for branding.



quack

 

[wyvern]

In their case, the hyphen wouldn't have helped with anything, since the dn didn't consist of two words....even the search engines would be befuddled.

You are right when you say hyphens are good for se's, bad for branding.

 

[DomainPairs]

It's not very impressive that a document processing company doesn't know the difference between a hyphen and a dash.

 

[peter]

Originally posted by DomainPairs
It's not very impressive that a document processing company doesn't know the difference between a hyphen and a dash.

what IS the difference?
It is just gramatical right? Still the same sign?

 

[domainduck]

hyphen and dash are synomyms.

I have an ongoing communication gap going on with a client... hyphen or dash, dash or hyphen?

The little line in between two words that makes a domain name less desirable for brand building.


quack

 

[DaddyHalbucks]

I like hyphenated domains for well searched keyword pairs such as: hair-replacement.com, affiliate-program.com, suv-accessories.com, etc..

 

[beatz]

Originally posted by DotComCowboy
I like hyphenated domains for well searched keyword pairs such as: hair-replacement.com, affiliate-program.com, suv-accessories.com, etc..

You mean like my CD-Burners.com, which together with my CDburners.net happens to be for sale ?

Shameless selfpromotion, i know.....

 

[JMJ]

I found this quite interesting. Check out #37 on this list of most popular keywords used over the last 60 days.

* Nos - Position according to popularity.
* Count - Number of sightings of keyword in database.
* Keyword - The keyword itself.

Our current database size is 329,963,126 search terms which represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc..) for the last 60 days (2 months).

Tip: With an estimated 350 million daily searches across all search engines, you should multiply the search count by about 70 to get a more accurate guide to the real monthly search count of a keyword.

Nos Count Keyword
===========================================
1 197571 travel
2 181673 autos
3 169267 people search
4 126410 google
5 124601 hotels
6 117719 jokes
7 114011 ebay
8 112244 yahoo
9 108749 health
10 81946 lyrics
11 76168 yahoo.com
12 74759 red cardinal
13 74079 hotmail
14 71690 Weight Loss
15 68948 games
16 68017 blank
17 65782 hotmail.com
18 62666 dictionary
19 60354 mortgages
20 59924 cars
21 57042 song lyrics
22 55739 maps
23 55434 books
24 54942 news
25 54810 mapquest
26 54326 weather
27 52716 recipes
28 50524 kazaa
29 50079 search engines
30 49872 www.yahoo.com
31 49450 music
32 47052 www.hotmail.com
33 43829 jobs
34 43399 Used Cars
35 41785 white pages
36 41118 parent
37 40710 -
38 40344 ask jeeves
39 40309 People Finder
40 40129 insurance quotes
41 39533 palm
42 37347 april fools
43 37142 clip art
44 35917 free clip art
45 35879 yellow pages
46 35836 Pictures
47 35759 wallpaper
48 34948 quotes
49 33599 google.com
50 33482 baby names

I'm a fan of hyphens myself. Great postioning means better hits. Simple as that. Very few sites get the bulk of their traffic from true "type in." True its hard to market a hyphen-hated domain but I personally can't remember the last time I visited a site that I didn't get refered to by either someone else, search engine, link, etc.

 

[timechange.com]

Originally posted by DotComCowboy
I like hyphenated domains for well searched keyword pairs such as: hair-replacement.com, affiliate-program.com, suv-accessories.com, etc..

Interested in Dental-Care.net ?

 

[backslash]

Originally posted by JoltHost
Our current database size is 329,963,126 search terms which represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers on the web (Metacrawler/Dogpile etc..) for the last 60 days (2 months).

Hey JoltHost, where did you obtain this search term database? Is it available publicly?

 

[JMJ]

http://www.analogx.com/contents/online.htm
Some other cool tools there also.

 

[adoptabledomains]

In the case listed, I don't think it makes much difference. I do think hyphenated names make much more sense in some cases when you also own the non-hyphenated version to catch type-ins.

For printed matter it makes multiple words easier to read, and sometimes can totally change the way it looks (as in Beattles-Hits.com vs. beattleshits.com where the "s" seems to give the domain a whole new meaning.)

 

[dtobias]

If those sites are about the music group "The Beatles", they're both misspelled...