Dashes in domain names?

dashes in domain names

There are two school of thought regarding the use of dashes in domain names.  The first group, hold that using dashes in a domain name increases a search engine’s ability to parse the file, thereby making it more agreeable to such crawler bots.  The other side of the fence has those who maintain that using dashes results in fewer “type-in” visitors, and has a greater chance of becoming forgotten as a result.

Those who favor using dashes in domain names insist that doing so provides a clearer way for people to locate their particular services in search engines.  As a consequence, they discount the loss of type-in entries as negligible at worst, since most visitors are arriving via the result of a search query.  This method provides, they maintain, a greater identity for web users.

However, using dashes retracts from the brandability of the domain, leaving it open for look-alike imitations.  If you are interested in associating your domain name with a particular product or service, it could be beneficial in the long run to avoid the use of dashes.  This comes back to the idea of having people who type in the URL directly, which is usually a major consideration for direct branding.  In plain English, people would rather type less to get to a website.

Whichever method you use, dashes can only provide a limited improvement, even for search engines. The methods which work today, may simply seem outdated tomorrow.  How people access and search for information is constantly changing, and the formulas used in search engine optimization evolve in response.  Today, using dashes in a google search are approximately the same as the identical search using bounding quotation marks. Remember that computers are people, not computers, and that they will take the easy way out, and say a little typing.

Article written by SEOnotepad.com