Dashes in domain names?

[David.]

So if you take a website, for example, Visa(.)com and you register V-I-S-A(.)com, can you make money off this?

I have been using google keywords and it seems like google does not count the dashes in its searches, so it appears that both of the domains are the same thing.

In other words, if you tell google to search V-I-S-A it will show the results for "VISA".

What do you guys think?

2nd question) same as above but what are your thoughts on domains such as credit--reports or credit----reports(.)com? Would they be the same thing as creditreports(.)com or not?

[biggedon]

not, no

if you add a hyphen, then it's not the same

and v-i-s-a would most likely be TM infringement.

don't waste time or money on names like "credit---report com" or similiar


imo

[4u-domains]

Hyphens/dashes will pick up search engine traffic in a similar fashion to a non-hyphen name but you'll still have to do the work to get it noticed.

The other issue is development when you may just be helping the non-hyphen name along with miss-typed traffic.

Overal, a good name is still worth registering but all the really good ones will be taken anyway.

I am not sure of the worthiness of have a hyphen after every letter. In principle, as you say, it shouldnt matter. I might try an experiment myself..

As with any domains, you play around with trademarked names at your own risk.

[Dale Hubbard]

Hyphens work, but only keywords up to a maximum of three; e.g.:

mobile-phone-cases.com

Just an example. More than three, and you're scuppered.

[katherine]

Domainers tend to shun hyphened domains because they will usually not receive a lot of type-in traffic. One hyphen between two keywords could be OK for development. Multiple hyphens, avoid. Trademarked domains, avoid.

[Gerry]

I do not shy away from hypens at all, especially an L-L or N-N domain.

And typically I only consider a word-word (2 words) hypen.

I do have one L-L-L that gets a considerable amount of traffic and conversion which was pretty surprising.

Also, my hyphenated domains do extremely well at Bodis.