January 11, 2008
By Khalid
Posted In
Domain Names, General, News, Projects, SEO Tests, Tips
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Hyphenated Domains
In my quest to start a number of profitable mini sites, I’ve been researching domain name possibilities, only to find many keyword1keyword2.com and .nets are now taken. But wait, what about keyword1-keyword2.com???
It is quite likely the .net is still available and I’ve managed to bag two in the past 24 hours, both with a moderate amount of searches per month but a lack of competition.
After reading up on the advantages/disadvantages, there is slightly conflicting information. What I can say is that hyphens can help separate the keywords and it makes it easier to rank in SERPs.
One study suggests, for highly searched terms, too many hyphens in a domain may result in a penalty as spiders know what you are up to and take note of it, for example, on 1st December 2007, according to Google Trends, “Texas Box Office” ranked 6th in the top search terms. TexasBoxOffice.com ranks first on Google, but Texas-Box-Office.com could probably get in 2nd with some SEO work.
Another study suggests that the penalties associated with hyphens are a myth and Google will not bat an eyelid if you don’t use too many hyphens. For the two domains I have purchased, one has a single hyphen whilst the other has two.
I’ll definately report the results in due course. Good luck with your persuits,
Khalid.
