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

[PRED]

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...

i as a domainer want the non-hyphenated first too.
however if you have a popular term or LLL etc where there is hundreds or thousands of people after same term or acronym, only one can have the first option, one can have the second hyphenated option too, then the rest have to brand a made up word or go for a lesser extension.

to add to what you say above, think about what i put in post 10, now although i as a domainer like i say would want the non-hyphenated to start a business, i am same as you, ..........however......
it is no coincidence a lot of these HUGE toy manufacturers have used hyphenated domains on their TV ads, as imo they are EASIER to remember for small children maybe, and adults? nice and spaced out?

 

[DN BROKER]

i as a domainer want the non-hyphenated first too.
however if you have a popular term or LLL etc where there is hundreds or thousands of people after same term or acronym, only one can have the first option, one can have the second hyphenated option too, then the rest have to brand a made up word or go for a lesser extension.

to add to what you say above, think about what i put in post 10, now although i as a domainer like i say would want the non-hyphenated to start a business, i am same as you, ..........however......
it is no coincidence a lot of these HUGE toy manufacturers have used hyphenated domains on their TV ads, as imo they are EASIER to remember for small children maybe, and adults? nice and spaced out?

I disagree with your outlook on dashes, I will never promote a domain for a product that uses a dash.. very simple... i will not want to lose one single customer to the owner of the domain with no dash... VERY SIMPLE its bad marketting...

 

[dcristo]

I disagree with your outlook on dashes, I will never promote a domain for a product that uses a dash.. very simple... i will not want to lose one single customer to the owner of the domain with no dash... VERY SIMPLE its bad marketting...

Depends on how your driving traffic to the site. If the primary source of traffic is from the search engines, it's not a bad idea getting hyphenated domain names.

 

[Bill Roy]

Batman, you will always lose a percentage of clicks, 404 messages, search timed out, misspelled name, and the good old fashioned 'bug' in the system.

Let us assume the 'word' under debate is 'insure' (this allows for extensions such as insurance, reinsure, insured, houseinsurance, etc.). Now if I were either a large insurance corporation or a one man insurance broker I would love to have as many of these domains as possible, however, the chances are that they are owned by someone else. Now, I find out that 'i-n-s-u-r-e' is available to register or purchase and that the search engines will read the name as 'insure' (because it is the most logical conclusion) and that customers also instinctively read it as 'insure' then wouldn't I be an absolute idiot to turn around and say 'I don't want that because it is not as good as 'insure' '? The positioning of 'i-n-s-u-r-e' in the SE results might be less than 'insure', it might only get 1% of the type in traffic of 'insure', but that would make it financially worth at least 1% of the value of 'insure'. Indeed it would be worth more to the owner of 'insure' so as they could protect the value of their own domain name and not lose market share to a competitor.

I have the domain 'M-U-M-S.com', I fully accept that this is not as good a domain name as MUM.com, MUMS.com, or M-U-M.com, but it is still a damn good domain name because I do not think one person who read the domain name did not read it as 'Mums'.com! Sure I may lose some traffic to Mums.com, but I will also get traffic (that reminds me I must park it).

When you start talking about 2 or more word domains the argument is even stronger for the hyphenated verion, here we can use the well known example of 'penisland.com', this domain is actually blocked at my daughters school, however, 'pen-island.com' is not! ('penis-land.com' is also blocked by the way.) So there are advantages with using the hyphen.

As it stands presently I am more than happy that some domainers do not see the value of hyphens, it means I have a greater opportunity to reg more myself! :smilewinkgrin:

 

[PRED]

I disagree with your outlook on dashes, I will never promote a domain for a product that uses a dash.. very simple... i will not want to lose one single customer to the owner of the domain with no dash... VERY SIMPLE its bad marketting...

Here, i'll break it down for you.
Lets use the examples i already gave.

Fisher price own Fisher-Price.com & FisherPrice.com
It is a tm so they would get to own both whatever.
They market the hyphenated version as their logo is hyphenated.
Both direct to the hyphenated version.
They are a 9 figure company i'm guessing and they are losing no traffic.

The next one character-online.co.uk
They chose to use this on adverts and have the hyphenated com too.
Now they are silly as the characteronline.co.uk is parked, so someone else is getting that traffic. They should have regged both.
These are company names though.

Two examples, two different tactics.
In the big scheme i doubt they're losing much.

Now if you want generic words, like i said i would choose the non-hyphenated too first and market that.
However, if i wanted to build a nice site, lots of hard work but not much outlay i would have no problem using two great keywords on a hyphenated com. I personally would choose it over a non-hyphenated in another extension.

It's natural to get a non-hyphenated two word com if you can get at nice price or already own which will apply to all of us domainers i'm sure.

Don't have tunnel vision though, millions of endusers wont see it same way as us and are very happy to buy a hyphenated com and use. Search engine results are exactly same for both and many are quicker and easier to read on some domains when they are visually only seen for a few seconds, particularly on a tv screen with hyphenated versions. These are all facts.

Also, lets say you are a smallish firm and you sell garden furniture.
Lets say the owner of GardenFurniture.com wants $500k or doesnt want to sell or is already developed.

If the owner of Garden-Furniture.com wants $4k, are you telling me small and medium businesses in this sector wouldnt want to own the second best domain they could own?

 

[DN BROKER]

Also, lets say you are a smallish firm and you sell garden furniture.
Lets say the owner of GardenFurniture.com wants $500k or doesnt want to sell or is already developed.

If the owner of Garden-Furniture.com wants $4k, are you telling me small and medium businesses in this sector wouldnt want to own the second best domain they could own?

my outlook on marketting is different... you all have excellent answers... but for me its a matter of marketting a domain with no dash... i rather reg gardenfurniturepalace, gardenfurniturestate, gardenfurniturestore, gardenfurniture123, etc.. i would never use a dash... there is many other ways to campaign your store, product.....

as far as domaining goes, i agree if i could own real-estate_com I would purchase it... for search engine traffic... but i would never use it to promote it on tv, billboards, etc... it would only benefit me ffor traffic online... otherwise i spend millions, and that 1 customer i lose to the domain with no dahs could have made a purchase, insted realestate_com just made a profit on my expense...

that 1 customer is profit lost... i call that bad marketting...

otherwise, i dont disagree with any of you...

 

[Gerry]

You have internetporn.com.

And I have internet-porn.com and you don't, then guess who just lost traffic and guess who just gained traffic thanks to your popular keywords?

For parking and revenue, they are great!

 

[intellect]

Cant we all agree that no hyphens is better for branding and hyphened names are useful for seo reasons and also brandable but will have traffic loss. Am i over simplifying it?

 

[hugegrowth]

All good arguments, some people just won't use the dash and that should be respected. Just a difference of opinion.

I used to not like the dash, now I own a bunch of domains with dashes. A lot of people are buying and using them - so there is a market for it.

I don't only buy domains to develop, some i buy as investments because I think they will have value to someone else and I can sell them for a gain. I'll buy asldjsjfdjdsajsdfjsdlfsa.com if I think there is a market for it, regardless of my own opinion.

If you take a newspaper and comb through all the ads with domain names, you will see that a high percentage of them break the rules for the 'generally accepted' idea of what a good domain name is. Lots of dashes, numbers and letters, long words, silly terms, etc.

A dash domain might lose traffic to the non-dash version, though I'd be surprised if it's as high as 80%. Whatever it is, I bet a lot of those people find out they are at the wrong site, go back and check the domain, and find the correct version. We don't know how much of that is happening - it's impossible to track.

I see the Canadian government uses dash domains, of the LL-LL.gc.ca type. The more people see and use them, the better it is for the dash.

Frankly there are just not enough good domains names out there for the demand, and it's only going to get worse, so good domains with a dash will continue to sell and have a market.

 

[elitedomains]

Hyphenated domains do in fact rank better in the SERP's (all things being equal) than non-hyphenated names because they hyphen acts as a delimiter and in many parts of Europe even big corporations prefer hyphenated domains. Example: Coca-cola advertises Coca-Cola.de on thier billboards in Germany even though they own the non-hyphenated domain as well. However as mentioned before you will always lose some type-in traffic to the non-hyphenated version. The question is: will you gain more in search engine traffic than you will lose in type-ins? I guess the answer lies in your advertising budget. if you are Wal-Mart then it's probably not worth it but if you are just an average webmaster and not paying for Super Bowl commercials to brand your domain you will likely gain more from search engines than you will lose to people typing in the non-hypenated domain.

 

[Gerry]

If we were to agree on anything, then it would not be DNF.

It would be a cult.

 

[intellect]

ok fair enough,but can we all agree that a premium .com given to us free and clear would be a great holiday gift?

If we were to agree on anything, then it would not be DNF.

It would be a cult.

 

[LarryWentz]

If you have a phrase or word that you "commonly" see used with hyphens ..... I love them! I have several (Tug-of-War.com, 3-D.net, e-zines.org, re-finance.org, etc...). If they are really strong keywords like weight-loss.com, domain-names.com (I wish I had them) and are .coms - I like them too.

 

[Namefox]

I like the hyphen/dash when you have the matching without dash/hyphen. If you are planning on developing, you should pick up both as the hyphenated version is better for seo purposes if optimized correctly OR used as a well-done doorway page. My 2 cents worth.

 

[Gerry]

If you have a phrase or word that you "commonly" see used with hyphens ..... I love them! I have several (Tug-of-War.com, 3-D.net, e-zines.org, re-finance.org, etc...). If they are really strong keywords like weight-loss.com, domain-names.com (I wish I had them) and are .coms - I like them too.

You need to give up the 3-D thing

 

[LarryWentz]

You need to give up the 3-D thing

I will .... for the right sum

 

[PRED]

coming-soon.com
on sedo reported sales section sedo/home page today
$20,000 !

 

[lordbyroniv]

So, is it better to have dashes and a .com OR no dashes with .info or .net?

Please adress your answer as far as 1) Branding 2) SEO

Thanks
Lord

 

[DomainName]

I still don't get why someone would pay $20k for Coming-Soon. I know a lot better names selling for 1/2 that! :lol:

 

[exponent]

My hyphenated domains do quite well. Some of the parked ones average 40-60% CTR.