the dash and .ca names

**hugegrowth** · 10-24-2007, 02:48 PM

What is everyone's experience with buying .ca names with a '-' dash in them?

I'm talking names like car-sales.ca or home-improvement.ca

Does anyone get type-in on these, or good results from developing them? Many good two word terms are taken, so someone is regging them. It seems lately like the dash is becoming less hated than it used to be. I see domains with a dash regularly in advertising now.

**liberator** · 10-24-2007, 02:56 PM

I have a few names with dashes. They seem to get traffic for instance:

Bank-Cards averages 30-40 hits a month
Fast-Money had 35 hits in the last 31 days
Fixed-Rate around 25 hits a month
Gold-Card gets between 70 and 100 hits a month

They seem to do quite well, although I don't think I've ever typed in a dash directly.

Hope that helps

Jay

**hugegrowth** · 10-24-2007, 03:05 PM

it's getting to the point where I might prefer buying a great two word term with a dash (high overture term), rather than a so-so two word term (lower overture term).

One name I'd been watching is NordicWalking, taken in most extensions and the .ca is a site. Nordic-Walking was available for a while, and still gone in most extensions except .ca, then it's been taken by a medical equipment company. This is becoming a popular activity for older people, and even with the dash would have done well in search engines.

**PeterMan** · 10-24-2007, 03:19 PM

I have a few with dashes as well, I am currently developing two of them and I have a plan for 2 more, they do get some traffic parked but not much yet... I like some of the keywords in mine, though so development is the way to go...

**whitebark** · 10-24-2007, 03:28 PM

I have contemplated buying them as well but it seems any niche where they are needed (everything related in non-hyphen is gone) is well-saturated and busting in to the top search results will be tough as it is.

**hugegrowth** · 10-24-2007, 03:32 PM

I guess the questions are:

do they get type in?
can they be successfully developped?
do they have resale value?

The answer is probably 'yes' to some degree on all questions. You might be able to get high search ranking with business-leads.cc, but you probably won't get type in, and resale would be hard based on the name alone. With the .ca you at least could get some type in, and companies don't seem to mind the dash when using domains.

**Namefox** · 10-24-2007, 05:00 PM

I got home-based-business and home-basedbusiness.ca. Huge OVT so I couldn't pass them up. When I was selling blankets worldwide, I developed websites like fleece-blankets-canada.com and a few more and they really helped me rank on the first page.

**DropWizard.com** · 10-24-2007, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by hugegrowth

What is everyone's experience with buying .ca names with a '-' dash in them?

I'm talking names like car-sales.ca or home-improvement.ca

Don't you mean home-improvements.ca

Looking at the last 3 months I have 3 in the top 50. They seem to do well at regular intervals.

**Ricks** · 03-18-2008, 12:01 PM

How does a dash domain get type-in traffic? I can't imagine someone would actually type in a dash, especially if the domain is parked and had never had a site before.

I'm not sure if this is correct, but one way I can see a dash domain getting typeins is if someone types in "mortgage rates.ca" into a search engine and the engine displays "mortgage-rates.ca" in the results and then it gets clicked. (note: mortgage-rates.ca is not mine - just an example)

Is that how it happens, or are there other scenarios where a dash domains gets typeins??

**Banned: theinvestor** · 03-18-2008, 12:05 PM

I think you are missing the idea...that most users on the internet don't actually know much about domains. So many people actually type dashes. How do you think parked sites get traffic? A lot of people don't understand how to use a search engine. I know so many people that if they are looking for something...they just type it in a web address. For example... "chinese food". They will type chinesefood.com ...in order to find places.

**rmacdon** · 03-18-2008, 08:31 PM

I have t-shirts.ca which gets some type in traffic. Never been a big fan of hyphens but felt this one is a bit of a natural.

Rob

**djallan** · 03-18-2008, 08:54 PM

Can't imagine too many hyphenated names getting type-ins except for ones like t-shirt, x-ray, etc. I'm sure there are people that will type in almost anything but I'll bet they are few and far between.

Hyphenated names will always suffer from awkward word of mouth promotion and wouldn't be my first choice. BUT, search engines don't penalize a single hyphen in a name and if the non-hyphenated version is gone and if it is for development then, why not?

They are still generally disliked by domain name resellers but end users are often looking for a cheaper next best option and a hyphenated name may be it.

**hugegrowth** · 03-18-2008, 09:11 PM

Since I started this thread I've seen hyphenated domains fairly regularly in advertising, used by government, and so on, both .com and .ca. I would say they are almost a common thing now. Thinking that people will see a hyphen domain in print, and forget to type it into their computer, is a bit of a stretch to me. Heck, one word and two word non-hyphen domains get typo'd all the time! As long as the hyphen is in a good place, it makes sense. It even helps to separate words and makes a URL easier to read, like in between a person's first and last name. I will agree that they aren't as good for saying out loud, radio ads, etc, but they are still good for print ads, tv ads, and for search engine rankings. I hear domains in radio ads often, lots of the time you are left scratching your head anyway as to what they said, unless it's a real easy phrase. Lots of names and words sound alike but are spelled differently.

The best thing about domainers not liking hyphens is less competition for domainers that do

**Doogles** · 03-19-2008, 04:41 AM

Why do Hyphenated keyword domains rock?

Because the type-in traffic crowd just don't get it !! Consequently, hyphenated domains (any extension) are dirt cheap and usually available straight from your registrar for a lousy six bucks or so.

Anyone with half a brain can run a hyphenated domain to the top of Google, MSN, Yahoo and all the other search engines in a few days. Piece of cake.

Search google.com for "custom bikini" . There is our custom-bikini.com at #3 out of 628,000 competing pages. And for the plural "custom bikinis" we are also #3. Yahoo puts us #1 and so does LiveSearch at search.msn.com.

Search google.com for "used fur coat". There is our used-fur-coat.com at #2 out of 1,130,000 competing pages. And for the plural "used fur coats" there is our used-fur-coats.com also #2. And #1 in Yahoo and #1 MSN.

I could go on and on . . . but a custom-bikini order just came in. Gotta run and process it.

Do hyphenated keyword domains rock? You betcha. That's why I own more than 800 of them.

If you are looking for Canadian traffic, .ca domains are the way to go. Easy to find, easy to buy and easy to run up the flagpole in Google.ca

Good luck with yours and ignore the "type-in traffic" crowd. They really don't get it. There is much, much more to traffic than type-ins.

**hugegrowth** · 03-19-2008, 01:52 PM

thought I'd add that if you check a two word term with a dash and see that it's taken in .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us, .mobi, it's a good sign. The more other extensions regged, the better, generally speaking. It's also good if the two word term can apply to Canadians and/or Canada. The same really goes for any .ca domain you want to reg, though I do own some .ca's where few other extensions are taken.

**Zoobar** · 03-19-2008, 02:57 PM

Picked up a hyphenated name in the drops today.

Sometimes they are too hard to pass up.

**Belzibut** · 03-20-2008, 12:48 AM

I couldn't believe the other day when I saw that web-page and web-pages was available now mine.

If you like it, spare-parts was in the tbr but no one picked it up. Yesterday I almost made a drunken registration. I got so excited when I realized that thai-chi.ca was available... oh boy.

**Irish31** · 03-20-2008, 09:32 AM

Dug around a little bit, snagged a few:

home-foreclosures.ca
home-foresclosure.ca
bank-loan.ca
interest-rate.ca
home-listing.ca
job-listings.ca
collection-agency.ca

We'll see if it was a waste or not.

**DropWizard.com** · 03-20-2008, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by Irish31

home-foresclosure.ca

We'll see if it was a waste or not.

Unless you made a mistake typing that one it is a waste.

No such word as "foresclosure". And it's not likely a typo a surfer would make.

some of the rest are nice though.

Originally Posted by doogles

Good luck with yours and ignore the "type-in traffic" crowd. They really don't get it. There is much, much more to traffic than type-ins.

We really do understand that. But that means work.....and you have no idea how lazy most of us really are

**Irish31** · 03-20-2008, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by DropWizard.com

Unless you made a mistake typing that one it is a waste.

No such word as "foresclosure". And it's not likely a typo a surfer would make.

some of the rest are nice though.

We really do understand that. But that means work.....and you have no idea how lazy most of us really are

Good eye, it was definitely a typo on my part, I have the proper spelling for:

home-foreclosure.ca & home-foreclosures.ca

Does anyone know what Banks.ca went for?