Dave Elliott: exactmatch cause if you say exact-match.com lots of people don`t know what a hyphen is.....no real seo benefits though.....basically avoid hyphens in your domain name if possible.
Michael Martinez: I have done it both ways for 20 years. It doesn`t really matter.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner: Doesn`t matter unless you`re expertsexchange. Then you should probably put in that hyphen as experts-exchange.com
Andy Iqseo: I remember Google saying a few years ago that anything with a hyphen might not be spammy, but might flag them for review or get seen as spammy.
Always try and go for something without a hyphen if you can... Unless there is a really good reason not to.
Jennifer Mathews: You know that there was a push to fight exact match domains in 2011? I would avoid either if you could.
http://www.seobythesea.com/2011/10/googles-exact-match-domain-name-patent-detecting-commercial-queries/
Steve Wiideman: Neither, and if you`re thinking brand-name_com vs brandname_com, always go with what would be memorable from offline advertising (billboards, radio, TV, etc). :)
Travis Bailey: I suppose it could be troublesome if you`re trying to rank free-porn-xanax-texas-hold-em dot com. That`s purely a search engine only perspective. As mentioned above, you do want the domain to be easy to remember. (Is it technine dot com, tech9 dot com, tech-nine dot com?)
Tangentially, I noticed it can be really difficult going with `alphabet soup` domain names. I`m not talking ridiculously established brands like ABC, or CBS. I`m talking about Bobs Carpet Installation and Mold Remediation LLC.... whom so wisely tend to purchase BCIMRLLC dot com.
Denys Dubner: Travis Bailey Let me provide more info so you understand better the nature of my question.
My client is a startup in catering biz. They don’t have a website yet. We are building one for them. And we need to rank this website as fast as possible. So my options are:
1. Buy new domain
2. Buy expired domain exactmatchsmth dot com
3. Buy expired domain exact-match-smth dot com
I hope it helps.
Thanks!
Dave Elliott: Buying the domain of thier company name is always the right answer. Exact match domains haven`t helped rankings since umm 2012?
Rob Watts: Just a wee point, but whichever you elect to use ( I’d go minus hyphen first, subject to readability gotchas) buy the common variant(s) of the EMD too. Don’t make it too easy for someone to come along and steal your hard work further down the line. Secure both.