What-are-your-opinions-on-dashes?

[Theo]

But one has to be picky. These examples are probably the best, but would you register J-V-Y?

 

[Devil Dog]

, but would you register J-V-Y?

Johnny Johannessen did. :approve:

 

[Gerry]

when ever i see advertising on tv, boards, bus, train that contains a domain with a dash, i just wonder how stupid can you be to invest money promoting your product and give away free traffic to the owner of the domain that doesnt have a dash...

just shows you not everyone in the business world is smart

no matter what you say, once you decide to promote a domain with dash, your loosing 80-100% of customers to the domain with no dash.. i have done research on this issue..

nice sell with ohio, who ever purchased it.. is not a wise business man! why, cause you could just reg a domain for 10 and brand it with ohiostate, with out using dash.. example, ohiostate123_com is by far a better choice
unless the buyer is a domainer...

I hardly think anyone on here is running out to put a billboard or sign up. We are talking natural type in traffic.

Turn this around and ask why would someone want to loose 20% or better to a hyphenated version? Hmm, should have gotten both?

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,540,000 for ohio-state
Results 1 - 10 of about 5,610 for ohio-state.com
Results 1 - 10 of about 6,150 for ohiostate.com

For traffic, a great domain.

Branding with ohiostate123? OhioState and Ohio-State are already very well branded and keyword rich. The 123 requires some effort (quite a bit) as it would take branding to get it ranked.

Damn Good Name, DOG!

 

[lordbyroniv]

I dunno , who searches like that?

www.h-o-m-e-l-o-a-n.com or www.n-e-w-y-o-r-k.com

Seems crazy to me?

Am i missing something?

 

[Gerry]

But one has to be picky. These examples are probably the best, but would you register J-V-Y?

Don't know. I did pick up many airport codes. And one worders.

Some airport codes have done very well, especially the Asian market. They love hyphens and numbers it seems.

I did not reg them for the sake of regging. They had to have some significance and what I thought would be good natural type in traffic, like N-A-M.com. Us older farts know what that means.

 

[lordbyroniv]

L-O-A-N.COM Is Available For $1500 But I Cant Believe Thats A Good Investment

Is It Me Or Do These D-a-s-h-e-s Make No Sense?

 

[Theo]

The dash as a word separator makes absolute sense. As a letter separator, it's just SEO trickery. No-one types h-o-m-e-l-o-a-n-s.com

 

[Gerry]

I dunno , who searches like that?

www.h-o-m-e-l-o-a-n.com or www.n-e-w-y-o-r-k.com

Seems crazy to me?

Am i missing something?

Who's searching like that is correct.

It gets ranked with the search results. So as someone goes down the list like on google, you may get the traffic meant for the non-hyphenated.

 

[lordbyroniv]

The dash as a word separator makes absolute sense. As a letter separator, it's just SEO trickery. No-one types h-o-m-e-l-o-a-n-s.com

As a word seperator, yes i agree but thats about it

Who's searching like that is correct.

It gets ranked with the search results. So as someone goes down the list like on google, you may get the traffic meant for the non-hyphenated.

I cant imagine that type of SEO trickery can go very far, but thats just me.
What do I know?

 

[Gerry]

L-O-A-N.COM Is Available For $1500 But I Cant Believe Thats A Good Investment

Is It Me Or Do These D-a-s-h-e-s Make No Sense?

Go to google or yahoo.

In the search bar type in LOAN.COM and then L-O-A-N.com. See what the difference is results is. Not so much interest in a number but more a percentage. For instance, if the diff is 10,000 results that may seem like a high number. But if the % change is 5% then there is not much lost.

I cant imagine that type of SEO trickery can go very far, but thats just me.
What do I know?

Now you know more.

I would take a name like Ohio-State any day.

L-O-A-N? Not for $1500. Sure it is a hot name, but there may be better or equally well alternatives. I like finding these on a drop.

 

[lordbyroniv]

Go to google or yahoo.

In the search bar type in LOAN.COM and then L-O-A-N.com. See what the difference is results is. Not so much interest in a number but more a percentage. For instance, if the diff is 10,000 results that may seem like a high number. But if the % change is 5% then there is not much lost.

Now you know more.

I would take a name like Ohio-State any day.

L-O-A-N? Not for $1500. Sure it is a hot name, but there may be better or equally well alternatives. I like finding these on a drop.

I bet the guy selling for $1500 gets little or no worthwhile traffic on
L-O-A-N.COM

Greater fool theory will drive that price

 

[Gerry]

I bet the guy selling for $1500 gets little or no worthwhile traffic on
L-O-A-N.COM

Greater fool theory will drive that price

I'd bet you're wrong.

Nearly 600 hyphenated domains in my portfolio with hyphens tell me I'd win. Not because they are in my portfolio. But because of the traffic and revenue they get.

Not to mention what I would imagine might be one of the highest private L-L.com sales.

It's all relative. You either like em or you don't. I certainly don't ignore them.

Put a couple with great history and age on backorder today.

 

[simon johnson]

To answer the question - it largely depends on what you want to do with the domain name. If you are buying it for the traffic it gets & to park, then a dash is irrelevant. If you are buying it to brand, then depending on your target market you may have to educate them about the dash. I wouldn't buy a domain with more than one dash - crazy!

 

[PRED]

Agree with you on the L-L-L being a fad. I dont get either.

You prob. see as a 'fad' cos you have only just heard of them.

All 17,500 approx L-L-L.coms are regged.

25% are developed, all have been checked. You'll need to go to the other place for stats, or i can pm you.

The last 40% or so were nailed by domainers. Point being, domainers are only just waking up to fact that these are so widely used.
They will become more in demand imho as smaller and mid sized businesses cannot and will not pay the soaring LLL.com prices imho

 

[DN BROKER]

The fact remains that any corporation, small business, etc will not benefit from a domain like ohio-state if their target is outside of the search engine world. The person who owns the domain with no dash will get most of the traffic.

I agree with everyone that ohio-state_com is a good domain for ranking, but i would never use it to promote it on television, boards, etc... there is a huge franchise in Canada that uses - in their domain campaign... i had a discussion with them and told them why they would be losing money to someone else. Trough my research i pointed out that the person who owns the same domain with no dash ranks top 10K in canada, and his ranks above 1 million on alexa. Why! Simple, end of the day.. when a person gets home from work, car.... they will 80-100% type in the domain with no dash.. then when they realize its not right adress they may remember the dash or forget and do a search on google, etc... thats when your dash may pop up on search.. otherwise your a loser in the game...

they spend millions on marketing... a domain with no dash would do much better. it doesnt matter if it has 123.. end of the day - the person in the car will go home and type in 123... the odds are better than him remembering the dash...

 

[Bill Roy]

The price asked for L-O-A-N.com is insignificant compared to the memorability of that name in one of the most highly competitive business fields. Remember anything can be advertised but it is what is memorable that works best.

When trying to analyse domains from a marketing point of view you should also look at what non-domainers do and think. All to often I read comments by domainers whom I respect giving just the 'domainers' point of view and that makes me cringe. We are in one of the, if not the most, revolutionary businesses in existance today, and if we think that everything is understood about what makes a 'good' or 'bad' domain name then it is time to put on the smoking jacket and slippers, light up the pipe, sit in a comfy chair by the fire and RETIRE!

Hyphens are here to stay, some are very good, some are ridiculous (IMHO), but they are usable, are used, and will be used in the future. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Focus]

remember, for SEO purposes..it does'nt even matter how many dashes are in the middle...now go think about that one

 

[olebean]

The price asked for L-O-A-N.com is insignificant compared to the memorability of that name in one of the most highly competitive business fields. Remember anything can be advertised but it is what is memorable that works best.

When trying to analyse domains from a marketing point of view you should also look at what non-domainers do and think. All to often I read comments by domainers whom I respect giving just the 'domainers' point of view and that makes me cringe. We are in one of the, if not the most, revolutionary businesses in existance today, and if we think that everything is understood about what makes a 'good' or 'bad' domain name then it is time to put on the smoking jacket and slippers, light up the pipe, sit in a comfy chair by the fire and RETIRE!

Hyphens are here to stay, some are very good, some are ridiculous (IMHO), but they are usable, are used, and will be used in the future. Just my 2 cents.

tend to agree...

 

[thevirtual]

In my experience domains with dashes seem to very popular with webmasters. I think it is a small issue about wether you are losing traffic to the domain without dashes. I would place a higher value to SE traffic than type-in traffic. Unless you're domain is a short generic .com you will be losing alot of type in traffic anyway. Also, people usually bookmark a page if they intend to return to it.

A good example of a domain with dashes doing well in the search engines: http://www.google.com/search?q=fibe...ox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7TSHA

A search for the term 'fiber optics' with the .info WITH A DASH in the 6th position. You could imagine how much traffic they must get.

A few domains with dashes I have :smilewinkgrin:
G-U-I-D-E.com
C-asino.net
C-asinos.com
Hotel-management.net
Checking-Account.net

remember, for SEO purposes..it does'nt even matter how many dashes are in the middle...now go think about that one

*goes to register Real--------------------------------------------Estate.com* :lol:

 

[Gerry]

When trying to analyse domains from a marketing point of view you should also look at what non-domainers do and think.

AMEN! Something I have been preaching for years.

Yes, we are domainers. But we are also consumers.

I was just reading an article on cloud-computing. Look it up.

That is exactly how it was referred to in the tech journal. And in a not too distant WSJ article.

So, as a consumer, do you think someone said "this is bogus and worthless. It has a dash (hyphen) in it."

We think things need to be branded as we see fit when the thing is branded already.

I have a good friend who is a motion picture consultant and military warfare history expert. So when he and his people are called upon to consult on a movie, I had never thought about it before but I wonder if they spell it re-enacting or reenacting.

As a domain name, which reads better, more fluid, and leaves very little doubt?

Re-enating.com
Reenacting.com

We, as domainers, want every one to read and speak like us. We're great and clever at combining words as we see fit and say this is the way it is supposed to be.

But it is not necessarily so. If I have a terribly long domain and a message to get out I may opt for hyphens just as in a natural spacer when speaking or reading...

speakingorreading.com
speaking-or-reading.com

Sometimes it is a matter of preference. Yes, it would be great if all SE's and domain capitalization or punctuation was as we deemed it should be, but for the most part, I am not sure you will see SpeakingOrReading.com in a search bar return a result exactly like that.

And in reality, how many times do you find yourself unintentionally combining words to create oneword that is not actually a word? I am doing it too much on the internet and find myself having to go back and proofread charts. Outside of domaining and internet usage, it doesn't go over too well.