Domain Names (Photo credit: ivanpw)
Most SEO people agree that having a single dash or hyphen (-) in a domain name is not a bad thing. Technically, the search engines still see the keywords in the URL and ignore the hyphens.
In the past, spammers have over-used hyphens to try and direct unsuspecting users to their own websites. Having two to three hyphens in a domain name is what has given hyphenated domains such a bad reputation.
Several articles point to the fact that hyphenated domains still appear in Google’s results (and many of these websites are high quality), and are therefore not being penalized for having hyphens.
Using hyphens is not good for branding a specific product or service, but a keyword rich domain name with a dash will still rank highly.
Sources:
Jon Rognerud (Author of The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization), personal communication.
http://www.werockyourweb.com/domain-name-with-or-without-hyphens (Feb 2012)
Hyphenated Domain Names: Use Or Avoid?
Posted on January 5, 2012 by Sergie Matthis
http://kevin-pike.com/hyphenated-domain-names-use-or-avoid/
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