Does Having a Dash in the domain name affect SEO and rankings?
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"Hyphens are treated by Google just like word separators, don't hurt, don't help.
Google was officially recommending using hyphens over underscores to separate words in url. "
source: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/XR8TX7Ezq-I
Also
http://www.seomoz.org/q/will-hyphens-in-my-domain-name-have-a-negative-impact-on-my-seo
Google was officially recommending using hyphens over underscores to separate words in url. "
source: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/XR8TX7Ezq-I
Also
http://www.seomoz.org/q/will-hyphens-in-my-domain-name-have-a-negative-impact-on-my-seo
One think to remember is less experienced people have trouble finding the 'dash' button on a keyboard. I'm sure we all have an older relative or neighbour with this problem. Your most likely not targeting these users but thought I'd mention it. Remember you also have to switch to a different keyboard on mobiles or tablets sometimes for the dask key. Again not a major inconvenience but something to remember.
www.ofuture.net
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This is a piece from Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
Good practices for URL structure
• Use words in URLs - URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure
are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Visitors remember them better and might be
more willing to link to them.
Avoid:
• using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs
• choosing generic page names like "page1.html"
• using excessive keywords like "baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseballcards.
htm"
Notice the last line.
It's an example of an excessively long line, but more importantly they do use dashes.
Also I can't find it now, but I'm pretty sure that I did see somewhere on their site that they actually recommend using them.
I use dashes in the urls of my articles all the time and I still get number 1 rankings so I think that they don't hurt, and they may actually help.
Good practices for URL structure
• Use words in URLs - URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure
are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Visitors remember them better and might be
more willing to link to them.
Avoid:
• using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs
• choosing generic page names like "page1.html"
• using excessive keywords like "baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseballcards.
htm"
Notice the last line.
It's an example of an excessively long line, but more importantly they do use dashes.
Also I can't find it now, but I'm pretty sure that I did see somewhere on their site that they actually recommend using them.
I use dashes in the urls of my articles all the time and I still get number 1 rankings so I think that they don't hurt, and they may actually help.
First thing you need to know is not to trust everything that google is telling you.
Underscore are to avoid that's for sure, regular hyphens can be used but you wouldn't have what we call an EMD (Exact Match Domain). EMD is when the keywords matchs exactly with the domain.
EMD are the best for small niches and rank very well and better than domains with an hyphen in the same niche. It is a lame practice allowed by google if you ask me.
The EMD can be as long as you need it to be. If you keywords is a very long tailed one, you'll rank better with an EMD.
It can have an impact on your CTR (click rate when displayed in search engines) as it doesn't carry a trust message, but overall it worth it for short terms websites.
Little reminder here, if you are into a brand strategy it doesn't matter. Brand Strategy apply for ambitious and long terms websites and all kind of corporation of course.
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