why this dramatic loss in value for a domain with a hyphen?

[rhopperger]

Hello,

just a quick newbie-question:

Why does a dash in the name practically wreck a domain's value?

Why is
sexygirlfriend.com more valuable than
sexy-girlfriend.com ?

And just how much less is the "-" name ?

Thank you for your answers
Reinhard

related to this question is my other thread
http://www.dnforum.com/f4/what-goes-into-value-domain-thread-18970.html

[Anthony Ng]

Domain names are like poetry (!) Try read the names out loud, and you'll get the difference.

[system0]

domains with hypens are much harder to brand - therfore their value is less (not in every situation but usually)

[rhopperger]

"sexy dash girlfriend dot com" doesn't sound so good, I admit that.

But how often is a domain name actually spoken? Aren't search-engines and links and other electronic traffic-movers (and even magazine ads!) completely indiscriminate of the dash?

And isn't traffic what it's ultimately all about?

[rhopperger]

Harder to brand. Now that I accept as a reason. Thanks for letting me know.

[system0]

the hypen will actually improve search engine traffic as the se parses the keywords more easily

if you rely 100% on search engines for your traffic then a hyphen would actually be better

2 hyphens or more in my opinion is dreadful looking and impossible for branding

[rhopperger]

Thanks fonzerelli,

Additional question:

as a rule, if two highly requested keywords come together in a domain (with or without the hyphen), does that improve, decrease or not change the traffic from search engines?

so, sex is good, business is good, what can be said about
sexbusiness or businesssex (lot's of s'es here ) ?

[system0]

well businesssex as a domain is terrible - as you said - too many s's

this is another time a hyphen is better - to split two words up where the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second word are the same

as for the search engines - i am not 100% sure if the se puts more emphasis on sexbusiness - to me the words look easier to parse but theyre probably the same

im not too sure on that

[GeorgeK]

I like to say the domain name out loud, as if it was being mentioned in a radio ad. Hyphens would be awkward to explain in a 30 second or even 15 second radio commercial.

[Anthony Ng]

>rhopperger: But how often is a domain name actually spoken?

What's your website or e-mail address? What? Say it again! With hyphen? Oh ...

[system0]

Originally posted by GeorgeK
I like to say the domain name out loud, as if it was being mentioned in a radio ad. Hyphens would be awkward to explain in a 30 second or even 15 second radio commercial.

totally agree - though there sre some excpeptions - for example coca-cola.com although in saying that they own the domani without the hyphen as well

[DomainPairs]

The big disadvantage with hyphens at the moment is that they don't get so many type-ins. This may change as surfers realise that most of the concatenated names go to search or link-list pages.

business sex and sex business are very different things.

A good name with a hyphen can draw more surfers than a bad name without.

[rhopperger]

related to this question is my other thread about all the factors that go into the value of a domain.

Please check out...
http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=18970

[boychik]

I believe that sitcoms.com sold at greatdomains.com for $150,000 dollars a few years ago. (still undeveloped)

Anyone want to offer me 10% of that for sit-coms.com? 5%?

[Anthony Ng]

>boychik: Anyone want to offer me 10% of that for sit-coms.com? 5%?

... or situation-comedy.com which is available?

Or even sit-com (singular) where .net is registered?

[revsorg]

Bear in mind that my comment here is based on my opinion that Google is the only important search engine to optimise for.

My understanding is that the jury is out regarding whether Google recognises keywords in website addresses where there is just one hyphen, and there is stronger opinion that two hyphens or more contribute little to nothing to your ranking (i.e. website addresses constructed from three or more keywords).

One theory is that when you see search engine results where the addresses match your search query, this is because the name of the website reflects the content that is contained within the site, not just that your search query matches the domain name.

I can point you to some evidence for the hyphen theory if you want, but it's on another forum, and I think it would be bad etiquette to mention the name of the forum in public.

[David G]

From what I understand and can see myself, Google and some other SE's automatically parse the words in a multiword url using word parsing technology which recognizes individual words, especially any dictionary words.

I think word parsing is fairly new technology so in the past hyphens helped much more than they do now.

[Anthony Ng]

And talking about SEO (and Google in particular), let me reveal a trade secret:

Your website TITLE tag weighs more than your domain name!

Actually, every SEO expert will tell you that.

[windows22]

Hypens works great, especially in Google:

One of the most important issues in google is your linkpopularity and the keywords within the link.

many links are simply put up as your url, and then you have your most important keywords withing the linktext.
Without hypens you loose this advantage................

As a small one man company domains with hypens work beautifully and the search engines is my main source of traffic.
Best is to register both versions if you can.

But if your name is Bill Gates.........