Impact on SEO of domain name choice

[Bring-it-on]

I'm confused. Hoping someone can clarify. I googled info on the best choices of domain name for SEO purposes and the top 2 ranking websites (SEO book and SEO gold) had conflicted advice about hypenated domain names. The first one said steer clear for branding reasons - less likely to be remembered - and the second one said hypenating works better than not ie SEO-gold.com better than SEOgold.com as google separates the words when they're hyphenated and not when they're joined?

I think if I use a hypenated domain name thats still catchy enough to remember should be ok? For me the hypenated is available and the non-hypenated is not.

[Bring-it-on]

I meant hyphenated!:D

[amused]

Mainkeyword.com and main-keyword.com will both be equally as good for SEO.

I would recommend trying to find a domain withought a - as it will increase trust with users. Often times websites like my-number-one-product.com look more "spammy" than mynumberoneproduct.com. I would say 1 '-' is the most to use for the sake of your sites brand. If you can't go with no hyphens than '-' isn't so bad.

Either way, its better to get any site up, hyphens or not, than do nothing. From an SEO perspective either will work, but I really do recommend finding a domain without any hyphens. (I know, it's basically impossible :p)

Best of luck!

[scholty]

I'm confused. Hoping someone can clarify. I googled info on the best choices of domain name for SEO purposes and the top 2 ranking websites (SEO book and SEO gold) had conflicted advice about hypenated domain names. The first one said steer clear for branding reasons - less likely to be remembered - and the second one said hypenating works better than not ie SEO-gold.com better than SEOgold.com as google separates the words when they're hyphenated and not when they're joined?

I think if I use a hypenated domain name thats still catchy enough to remember should be ok? For me the hypenated is available and the non-hypenated is not.

When in doubt go with Aaron Wall's recommendation. He is rock solid when it comes to that kind of info.

I would however suggest buying both domains as well and doing a redirect to one of them. Also think of common misspellings and buy those as well.

[Bring-it-on]

Thanks for the feedback - I ended up going to town and getting everything like you both said! Got 8 in total so that should sort me out :)

Cheers
Kim

[Chris Nelson]

Ok, well the best thing for words that are strung together IS hyphens. Trust me. I write about it here: http://www.do-it-yourself-seo.com/seo-naming-files

Google will read it as all one word unless it is a very simplistic URL. The safest bet is to always use hyphens for longer URLs. Here's what I mean: "www.therapist.com" and "www.the-rapist.com". Two completely different things, yes? This is obviously an over the top example, but you get the point. For top-level domains that are simple, like "www.seoblog.com" or something like that, you shouldn't have a problem.

Just remember the proper hyphenated naming convention when you are naming your internal pages.

Chris Nelson
(http://www.do-it-yourself-seo.com)

[seth121]

Ok I think something should really be clarified here.

The search algorithm in Google see's domain names with hyphens as "SPAMMY" sites. Hence the reason why hyphenated url's sell cheaper than ones without.

If you are wondering what's the difference SEO wise when it comes down to choosing a domain name it's these.

1. The more words in a URL the less points per se it gets in the search engine. So try to stick with 1-4 word keyword domains. I would suggest 2-3 to target kind of broad searches.
2. For every hyphen or other url extension ending in anything else other than .com you lose points. The best thing to choose if you can't get the .com is to pick the .org or .net...unless your are in Europe.
3. Now having an exact keyword domain match gets your better ranking in the search engine depending on the word and what you are tying to rank for.

For instance "creditcards.com" will rank much better than credit-card.com...now you are asking why does it matter so much. Well depending on what ever niche you take on having an exact domain match can save you heaps of money on SEO and organic search. That mean you don't have to do as many backlinks, guest post for links, directories, pay for links etc....So if you were wanting to do a credit card review website with a url of creditcardreview.com....this would save you over $50,000 in simple SEO because credit cards is a really competitive market.

So if you are looking to be at the top of the conversion funnel get an exact domain match without hyphens...if possible and remember stick to 2-3 word urls. URLs seem to have a direct correlation with conversion rates on PPC. PPC Ads convert better with a less spammy url.

[junkilo]

1. The more words in a URL the less points per se it gets in the search engine. So try to stick with 1-4 word keyword domains. I would suggest 2-3 to target kind of broad searches.
2. For every hyphen or other url extension ending in anything else other than .com you lose points. The best thing to choose if you can't get the .com is to pick the .org or .net...unless your are in Europe.
3. Now having an exact keyword domain match gets your better ranking in the search engine depending on the word and what you are tying to rank for.

killer. can you cite your source on this? I'm catching up on SEO hiatus.

[seth121]

Unfortunately I can't post the article from Aaron Wall publicly since he keeps the information private in his forums. But if you are wondering the source it's from Aaron Wall at his membership site seobook.com

[jetpacklife]

don't use hyphens in the domain, but pick a nice short domain. For the rest of the url, use hyphens in your file names whatever.com/seo-gold

Be very careful with the multiple domains. Only use one and don't let the others get linked to, as this will water down the rank of your main site. (unless your main site is #1 in the keywords you want, and you also want to own #2 or #3)

[seth121]

Well you can link numerous domains that you have just make sure they are all on separate IP addresses....because if not....bannage

When you purchase a domain and hosting you have the option to give it own IP by paying an extra "x" dollars a month

[charlestown]

I won't make any claims here to being an SEO guru but my gut instinct says to avoid hyphenated domains where possible, especially if a non hyphenated version already exists that has any degree of prominence. The hyphenated version will tend to look like an also ran.

A while back I attended a seminar in the UK with people from some government department for Intellectual Property and they actually stated that the most successful companies were invariably those with names that did not specifically reflect the subject of the business. They sited ebay and other similar examples as being much more successful and easily remembered than companies who had set out with more deliberately targeted names.

[seth121]

It depends with domain names. If you are going a branding route then definitely a simple un-hyphenated name works best. But if you are just trying to push a product that is already out there and trying to outrank someone on the web then usually a exact match or broad match domain would work best.

But I would try to avoid branding simply because it requires much more money and time invested and unless you know how to test for certain elements it may end up as a lost cause.

[kamakiri]

This really is a non-issue in terms of SEO. Without the right content, no name is going to help. Sweating a name is a waste of your resources. There are thousands of huge examples, yahoo, google, and squidoo just to name some huge companies that place no value in a name relating to their core business.

Choose a name and move on to bigger fish.

[tzongyih]

I have 1 thing want to clarify,

How about website with number? Like 1personallifecoaching.com?
I have that this website conversion is slow though the SEO is not bad.
Any idea?

[seth121]

I would go with keyword domain names that have a large volume simply because it's easier to rank for and so much cheaper SEO wise.

But again for branding it's completely up to the person.

[Chris Nelson]

I'm seeing a lot of wrong (or slightly twisted) information about SEO here. If you're not a professional (in any field), repeating wrong information does not help people - it can actually hurt them. I've written some FAQs / Blogs about these things, so here they are some of them:

Hyphens vs Underscores (http://www.do-it-yourself-seo.com/url-structure-hyphens-vs-underscores)

Multiple Domains (http://www.do-it-yourself-seo.com/seo-multiple-domains-301-redirects)

Domain Age (http://www.do-it-yourself-seo.com/seo-domain-age)

• As far as the length of a URL, it doesn't matter as much as you'd think it does. The earlier the keywords appear in the domain name, the better. Short and concise is prettier, and waters down those keywords less, so YES, less is better. However, this is just one tiny deciding factor when it comes to everything "SEO".

• Hyphens actually help search engines understand domains and page URLs better, depending on the search engine. Especially if they can be confused with different words, such as "www.therapist.com" and "www.the-rapist.com". Obviously this is a strange example but it works nonetheless. When in doubt, use hyphens to separate words when it comes to domains and URLs.

I have a whole bunch of other topics I write about on my website, Do It Yourself SEO (http://www.do-it-yourself-seo.com). Let me know if you have any questions about any of this...

[Sven]

I'm confused. Hoping someone can clarify. I googled info on the best choices of domain name for SEO purposes and the top 2 ranking websites (SEO book and SEO gold) had conflicted advice about hypenated domain names. The first one said steer clear for branding reasons - less likely to be remembered - and the second one said hypenating works better than not ie SEO-gold.com better than SEOgold.com as google separates the words when they're hyphenated and not when they're joined?

I think if I use a hypenated domain name thats still catchy enough to remember should be ok? For me the hypenated is available and the non-hypenated is not.

One thing has not been touched here. In the OP's message there are two conflicting messages coming trough.

One is about people remembering, the other about search engines finding. SEO is about the latter, branding about the first. But if there is a keyword or a set of keywords that people may type when they want to find a product, get it as a domain.

[Chris Nelson]

But if there is a keyword or a set of keywords that people may type when they want to find a product, get it as a domain.

I would tend to agree with this. Just make sure you're using 301 redirects for multiple domains.

[seth121]

Hyphens help in google understanding files but not necessarily URL's. Hyphen's should only be used as a last resort. Google see's hyphenated URL's as more spammy as straight domain URL's. If someone has the domain you want look for the .com, .org, or .net.

There's a reason hyphenated domain's sell less than non-hyphenated domains.

The best thing is to get an exact match domain if it's possible, but there's a good possibility that you will have to pay a premium price for it.

And careful with redirecting multiple domains. If they see that You are trying to get an advantage by redirecting then you run the risk of getting multiple sites banned.

[Chris Nelson]

Google see's hyphenated URL's as more spammy as straight domain URL's.

That's not correct. I'm not sure where you got this information, but it is simply not true. I'm really not trying to be difficult - I just want to clarify.

Also, Google really doesn't care if you have multiple domains - as long as they are being redirected via a 301 redirect. They WILL penalize or ban sites that are mirrored and/or have duplicate content. 301 (not 302) redirects are the only way to make it legit.

[seth121]

Here are some references from trusted sources and the results have been tested.

http://www.seobook.com/archives/001513.shtml

http://www.seomoz.org/knowledge/domain

Also if you look at many of the top results for heavily searched sectors you rarely see any hyphenated URL's.

[Chris Nelson]

I'm sorry, but both of your sources seem a bit "gray" on the issue. Aaron is obviously not sure, while SEOmoz says it is the case, while not referencing any source, documentation, or proof of any kind.

SEOmoz also says this: "For readability sake, a domain name that is longer than 3 words should be separated with hyphens."

Obviously the longer your domain, the more watered down it becomes in the search engines. This is a logic and keyword issue - not a hyphen issue.

Honestly, the documentation that agrees that hyphens are helpful to search engines far outweighs the "guesses" of individual SEO's about their "spamminess". Honestly, it's a lazy assumption and quite frankly I'm tired of it, lol.

[seth121]

Well it's open to discussion. But I have tested it myself as well.

But again like I said before theres a reason hyphenated domain names sell for less.

http://www.youtube.com/user/seobook?blend=2&ob=1#p/u/30/TL7oV5EY59U

[Chris Nelson]

Well, until Google openly shares its algorithms with the community, we're bound to have some controversies and debates with other SEO's. This is one such example. ;)