My question is about domains with hyphens.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Matt Benson: My question is about domains with hyphens. I know they are generally looked down upon and some selective evidence has been produced that Google devalues them to some extent.
  
  However, I have a client who really wants to use one and it is the closest available match to the name and purpose of the site.
  
  So what say you?
  a) Avoid a domain with hyphens at all costs
  
  or
  
  b ) A domain with hyphens should be ok as long the name matches the business, syncs well with the content, and the content is high quality and not at all spammy
• 
  Richard Hearne: For seo a single hyphen is unlikely to have a significant impact. Multiple hyphens probably more dangerous, but I'm sure that's not a general rule.
  
  The bigger issue is branding. If another company uses the non-hyphen version of domain they'll probably get some of your traffic.
  
  If it was me I'd never start a business on a hyphenated domain. You'll only pay more later to fix the problem. Tell your client to look for end-user domain sales where companies had to but the non-hyphenated version of their domain.
• 
  Matt Benson: +Richard Hearne ;What about this though, the hyphenated domain is a .org and the primary purpose of the site is to be a very specific industry portal. A kind of clearinghouse for information, networking, industry contacts, awareness issues, etc. The only other non-hyphenated version of the domain that's available is a .info or .us ;
• 
  Rob Maas: Also think about readers/visitors. ; ; Why do you think Experts Exchange ; uses hyphens in their ; domain. Don't overthink SEO.
• 
  Matt Benson: +Rob Maas ;That's a good point.
  
  I hadn't really thought about this issue in years. The client just brought it up out of the blue today and when he said, "What about this domain" I instantly started thinking about when was the last time I even saw a domain with hyphens in the serps.
  
  After getting Richard's reply I did an incognito search using the primary search term that might be used in other parallel industries and guess what.
  
  #1 has a hyphen
  #4 has 3 hyphens
  #6 has 2 hyphens
  
  So I guess hyphens don't matter as far as SEO is concerned. Branding, yes that may be an issue.
• 
  Wendhel Freeman: Test it on some dumby sites, and see what happens for yourself... I think you'll be surprised that none of that stuff matters, if you know what you're doing
• 
  Dave Elliott: My thing against hyphens is when you tell people your domain in a conversation. A ridiculous amount of people don't actually know what a hyphen is and will start trying to write underscores or slashes into your domain.
  
  the stupidity of people should never be underestimated.
• 
  Matt Benson: +Dave Elliott ;That is so true.
• 
  Jamie Slater: Yes that is definitely the major problem when it comes to using hyphens, when the name gets passed on by word of mouth, not good if you are taking a long term view of things. For sure some people associate hyphens with spammy sites and can avoid clicking on them but ....... I know people talk about hyphens being bad for SEO but I don't think that is the case at all. I have a client at the moment and most of their competition is in fact from sites using hyphenated domain names and they are dominating the search results for multiple keywords. On top of that, it is a very competitive market where £££ $$$ are clearly being spent.
  This is only my opinion so it is up for correction but............I don't think you only have to go for a TLD .com .net or .org and settle for hyphens. As an example I find that here in the UK,co.uk 's work great.
  
• 
  Rob Maas: John Mu on Hyphens: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
• 
  Matt Benson: Excellent catch ;+Rob Maas
  
  Thank you very much.
• 
  Rob Maas: For those who don't want to watch all: its at 24:35 ; :) ; ;