I own several domains both hyphenated and non-hyphenated and I see absolutely NO difference in SE placements. With very minor differences either way they seem to perform the same for me. Some of them are 2 words and one is 6 words long. As long as you layout the site with good SEO you should be ok IMHO

And this is from a 73 yr old laymen thats been in the porn biz since the early 90's.

Peace :thumbsup

hyphen or not doesn't matter

Perusing this thread over some fine Colombian (Coffee! LOL!) and a smoke(Dammit!) this morning, I realised that I am pronouncing both blasphemy and anathema and that very much like the preaching of an atheist at a Southern Baptist convention, my message is becoming lost in the shrill outcries from the congregation! It is as though I have pronounced that some Great Belief to be false and a lie, which of course I have and the congregation is responding by speaking in Tongues, evidencing whole-body tremors, seizures and total apoplexy!

Listen my children and you shall hear of the Interent Ride about what I hold dear!..............

I never wrote that a domain name itlself is unimportant when standing alone and in fact, if you are using a domain as "stand alone"; that is not being marketed without effective and meaningful SEO, then you damned well better have a very relevant domain name. If you are using effective SEO, I contend that the relevancy of the domain name to the product or service being offered on that domain becomes far less significant in the scheme of things.

Consider, if you will, two guys who want to open a bar; Billy Bob and Dirty Joe. Consider a major four-lane highway to represent the search engines. Billy Bob puts his bar, which he calls "Billy Bob's Bar, Beer Joint, Delicatessen, Gun And Knife Club, Casino And Chili Parlor" (Keywords)right next to the highway with all that traffic, puts up a little sign, which we will consider to be his domain name. Billy Bob figures that he'll get all the sales he can handle because of his proximity to the big four-lane highway and so does little or nothing in terms of promotions or advertising.(No SEO) Now Billy Bob's Place is really very, very nice because he spent a gazillion dollars on design, furnishings and equipment. He puts himself behind the bar and hires a couple of average college girls to wait tables. Place ought to do good, right? I mean right next to all those people driving by?

Dirty Joe puts his bar five miles out in the sticks in a remodelled barn with a leaky roof, calls it "Dirty Joe's Stables"(Not relevant) but puts up a searchlight, has dancing girls, poor lighting, drink and food specials, old second-hand restaurant tables and chairs, pinball and poker machines, pool tables, waitresses in skimpy outfits and the place has sort of a well-worn and almost seedy appearance. Dirty Joe offers drink special to all of the biker clubs in the area and lets them know about it through free ads in the local fishwrap (SEO), he puts up a few signs along the four-lane highway(More SEO), he sends out a couple of Boy Scout Troops to hang flyers on doorknobs (SEO) and come Saturday night, his place is packed and the $ are rolling in, hand over fist!

Why?

Dirty Joe didn't sit on his ass waiting for people to drop in!(Traditional marketing; no SEO.)

Billy Bob is sitting in HIS nearly empty bar alongside the four-lane highway waiting for people to find him. The problem with the placement of Billy Bob's joint is that people on that four-lane highway (Search Engines) just drive on by at 70 mph!

Dirty Joe is not a vulture, he is a HUNGRY WOLF and even with a poor facility, a goofy name(Domain), old fixtures, you-gotta-get-lost-in-the-woods-to-get-there, by intelligent and effective use of SEO, Dirty Joe is now knee deep in $ and has even more money to live on and even more money to promote his little dump of a bar.(SEO=ROI=More SEO=More ROI, etc.)

Not the best analogy but not the worst either and you should be able to get my point once you wrap your heads around the fact that I am essentially telling the search engines to Go Fuck Themselves!

Are you a HUNGRY WOLF ready to go out and KILL something or are you a VULTURE, waiting for something to die?

Thus speaks Sally.

Thanks for looking, now get the Hell out of my post* and..................

GO FUCK YOURSELF!

Sally.

*Simpsons homage. ;)

I've done both and seems that it's worth a shot to try the hyphen domain. SE ranking might be good from my personal experiences. Just trying to help. It's always worth a shot IMO.

I had a great brandable hyphen domain a few years back that was anal-hangover.com and it ranked well on SE

Robbie has unique and very superior product to sell, so he can in theory only sell to die-hard fans who will find him on any domain and say fuck off to everyone else, including affiliates. Still, with everything else being equal, he would have a lot more sales - prob over 50% more - on a name like bigtits.com. With his name - hyphen or not - he loses pretty much all potential word-of-mouth and casual customers.

Your average webmaster with shitty product to sell and shitty domain has huge odds stacked against him.

What in God's name are you babbling about you psycho! :disgust



Competing online and being a "wolf" as you suggested means doing everything and anything. Doesn't take a fucking genius to know that you can brand a name that's irrelevant - but it also shouldn't take a genius to know that a RELEVANT domain is always better than an IRRELEVANT domain... regardless of how much you speculate. Take your grape jelly nonsense and shove it.



-------- Didn't read any of this bullshit below - the basketball / grape jelly example was bad enough, thanks :thumbsup ----------------


As for that coffee - I live in Colombia so I can drink the best Colombian coffee whenever I please. :pimp

pros
- seo

cons
- seo
- less typein traffic

:)

I know this thread is a bit old but this topic interests me and for anyone else out there who was contemplating buying a hyphened domain.

Everyone has a point of view on the subject, most who do not like purchasing hyphened domains make a valid point in regards to branding. I also would probably never pick up a domain with a hyphen which isn't a .com.

With that being said there is a market for a GOOD keyword rich hyphened domain, just this past week 5 domains with hyphens sold for a good amount and they weren't .com's either.

led-shop.net $1,013
Real-Estate.asia $14,175
handy-recycling.de $2,429
big-sport.de $1,215
horse-racing.co.uk $3,200

As a matter of fact I just picked up Porn-Orgies(.)com, not sure if I am going to sell it or put up a quick site but I think I can find a buyer to give me more than what I purchased it for (registration fee) if I decide to sell it.

You sometimes meet a person with whom you'd like to share your site's URL and spelling the shit out along with all the hyphens sucks ass. The same goes for phone calls and whatever other non web conversation you might be having. If your domain contains a hyphen it will sound like cheap scam as you're spelling it out.

harder to remember, harder to promote over let's say the radio,... so less type ins...

other than that, no problem at all.

Agreed, for a more mainstream site for lets say a company it wouldn't be ideal but cetainly not out of the question.

Ultimately I think the content will keep visitors coming back for more and if your site has good content then people will bookmark it and share with others. If you have shitty content and a great domain your site will go downhill no matter what.