I am thinking of getting a domain name with a hypen as it is still available as a .com

It would be say www.dream-symbols.com

Will a hyphen confuse people?

ALSO I have the choice of a domain name with .org.uk versus a .net

Would a .uk name be less good than a .net ?

I want to make the website appeal to the whole of the internet. Would a .uk domain really reduce its chances of getting a high position on google?

http://www.unclesirbobby.org.uk

I'd go for a .net instead of a .uk. Also, I don't think a hyphen would confuse people if it is a casual site, but a hyphen may confuse customers trying to access a real life business.

A hypen is a good choice for a domain anyway, so I don't think it would affect anything bad for your site. I would also prefer to have the .net one because it is a top level domain compare to the one with the .uk extension wherein it only targets mostly UK countries.

Hyphens are good choice for SEO domains, not so good for a company site or a brand name.

Hyphens are horrible for end users, SEO doesn't care about hyphens (after all its just a string of ACSII text (until the stupid ICANN changes it next year..)).

Some college runs 10 ads every day and their domain is:
http://vatterott-college2.com

Aside from the domain not even working, its a horrible choice. No average user will know that a domain has a hyphen, They just say "burgerking.com" or "walmart.com", not "wal [hyphen] mart.com".

Hyphens are bad, don't use them. *ever*

Originally Posted by zeruel

A hypen is a good choice for a domain anyway, so I don't think it would affect anything bad for your site. I would also prefer to have the .net one because it is a top level domain compare to the one with the .uk extension wherein it only targets mostly UK countries.

Agreed Totally !! Hyphen wouldn't create a negative impact on the Domain Name For eg ~ This forum ~ www.webmaster-talk.com

Originally Posted by Decaf

Hyphens are bad, don't use them. *ever*

Hah! I have some triple-hypenated-domain-names that earn me a full-time living. So lets separate opinion about hyphens being 'good' or 'bad' from the reality. I see this in SEO forums constantly and it's a myth that needs to get debunked.

1. Most people don't manually TYPE domain names any more. They just CLICK LINKS - which take them to the website. Auto-complete in web browsers does a majority of work these days as well.

2. Sometimes you want a keyword loaded domain that's already registered. So if minneapolisautosales.com is already owned by someone else, you can be minneapolis-auto-sales.com

3. Good domain names are getting eaten up by the thousands literally every minute! I'll take a hyphenated one over not having the critical keywords I want any day. Nearly every one and two word domain imaginable has already been registered. Sometimes you got to grab what you can.

4. Pushing a site onto Page One of Yahoo, Bing, Google has NOTHING to do with hyphens. Either you got the SEO/SEM skills to do it or not.

5. I do concede 'talking-out' a hyphenated domain is not easy. But hey, you can always hand 'em a business card...

6. Ultimately, your domain name is only a SMALL piece of a much more vast and complex puzzle. Not getting enuff traffic IS worth losing sleep over, hyphens aren't.

i have used domains with hyphen and can say that it can be targeted globally for sure rather then going for .uk

Hyphen's are Surely helpful for serp's in search engines, i can say better then going for country specific domain.

Hyphens are good choice for SEO domains.I think thats better.





thanks
affordable web services

Having a hyphen in the domain is not a problem if a majority of your traffic will come from the web via search engines or links. If you are planning on using the domain for marketing which involves people having to manually enter the URL, it might be a better idea to have a domain without the hyphen.

Originally Posted by ngseo

Having a hyphen in the domain is not a problem if a majority of your traffic will come from the web via search engines or links. If you are planning on using the domain for marketing which involves people having to manually enter the URL, it might be a better idea to have a domain without the hyphen.

I _have_ had problems 'talking out' my domains on, say, YouTube videos I've done. So I do concede hyphenated domains (or even subdomains) can be problematic. The average surfer still thinks EVERY website starts with a www. and has a hard time grasping things like even my.yahoo.com taking them to their custom portal page rather than the generic www.yahoo.com page.

Many of us have registered domains we later came to find could have had slightly stronger or better keyword in it. Sometimes it isn't until you have a site up and running that your site visitors TELL YOU which words matter that you didn't see in foresight! Still, there's 101 things you can do in the HTML headers and on-page to compensate for a less than 'perfect' domain name.

Quite frankly, alot of emphasis seems to be put on domain names these days. Yes, you want your domain name to be relevant, but it is important to remember that a good sounding domain name is not what will get your website found. It is the content found in your website and relevant back links that does the job.

If your goal is to resell your domain name to someone who wants it, then having a hyphen will not be an issue assuming the buyer has a grasp on SEO.

Buy a hyphenated domain name for SEO purposes, then a .com no hyphen brand name domain.

Forward the .com to the hyphenated one. That way you an promote through link and online methods the hyphenated, and tell your users about the .com .

I believe a 301 redirect is the correct one to use that you won't get banned for anything suspicious, but I could be wrong on that, better get a second opinion on which redirect to use.

Hyphens aren't all that bad. They actually are better to read.

For example: bobsblog.net or bobs-blog

Which one is a lot easier to read?

If you have a look at the URL of this forum you will see hyphen. So now you can caal this domain name bad one?

I suppose you need to understand that SEO and your domain name has nothing to do together and DO NOT influence on each other.
Another thing. the domain name shouldbe memorable if you want people to return to your web site and visit it.
And that memorable domain name can contain hyphen

First point is easy. Take the .net no issue.

Second thing about the hyphens. You can SEO the heck out a hyphen domain. Its user behavior thats the other issue. Having one hyphen makes a domain still look ok. But its those three/four hyphen domains that I think some end users avoid. It also depends on the niche and the type of user that would be targeted.

Originally Posted by dbinto

First point is easy. Take the .net no issue.

Second thing about the hyphens. You can SEO the heck out a hyphen domain. Its user behavior thats the other issue. Having one hyphen makes a domain still look ok. But its those three/four hyphen domains that I think some end users avoid. It also depends on the niche and the type of user that would be targeted.

Once again SEO and domain names do not depend on each other. That it. But I agree depending on the niche you are in you might have domain name with hyphen and such domain would be good

If you don't care about brand name, then domain name with hyphen is fine and even better for SEO purposes.

Not a huge fan of hypen domains.