Is the "-" good or bad?

[Dingo]

Hi all.

Just learning here so maybe you can help.
I see many refrences in this forum suggesting that a "-" in the middle of a domain is normally a negative thing.

I appreciated that it may make a domain harder to remember or market but in terms of search engines does black-shoes.com rank better than backshoes.com because people would actually type it in a 2 words "black shoes" rather than 1 word "blackshoes".

Thanks for any feedback.

Dingo

 

[ad-lib]

Theoretically hyphenated domains rank better on search engines. However I rather sacrifice my "search engine ranking" a little for a good ol' non hyphenated domain.

 

[DNQuest.com]

I don't like hyphens in my domains. I can see where hyphens may be attractive to uninformed end users. So it would really depend on the words that were used. But overall, hyphens are to be avoided.