Hyphenated domains – good or bad?
-
I have a client who will be changing their domain name from www.brand.co.uk to www.brandglobal.com. There are concerns however that this might affect the searches for brand terms and variants. Hence, there is a suggestion for going for www.brand-global.com. I’m aware that search engines are smart enough to discern the brand name in most cases, but I’m wary if it would impact highly on the brand search terms and would it be a better option to go for www.brand-global.com instead of www.brandglobal.com? Any advice (or reference to discussions around this) would be much appreciated. Thanks
-
Hey Keri,
I do not have hard data to prove this claim, it's purely my opinion and I should have marked it as such. I had a few presentations to customers recently and most of the time when I asked them to go to a specific page the person would use a hyphenated (spelling?) version or search brand1 keyword1 instead of brand1keyword1.
I personally first try a hyphenated version (e.g. -online.com).So I updated my response to the question to reflect this.
Sebastian
-
Hi Sebastian,
Can you share more information about most people tending to use hyphens when typing in a name? I haven't seen studies on that before and it sounds like really valuable information to have. Most of the advice I see is to avoid hyphens in the domain name itself as multiple hyphens can look spammy and it's more difficult to say verbally.
In any case, if you do opt for the hyphen, ALSO get the non-hyphenated domain. Otherwise someone else will get brandglobal.com and capture a ton of your traffic from when people don't type in the hyphen.
-
I don't like using a www.brand-global.com if you have a www.brandglobal.com it looks a tad spammy and second rate in my opinion. I don't think it will impact highly on the brand search terms.
If you do choose www.brand-global.com i would for sure buy www.brandglobal.com and 301 redirect it
-Take a look at domain values the - is always a cheaper domain
-
There are two opinions on this in the SEO world and mine is that it is good. I like the readability and believe for that alone it is beneficial. To date, I have seen nothing proving it is a negative.
But, here is a question: Why change from the brand.co.uk to brand-global.com? Does adding global assist your client's needs in any way. They may be a global company, but why would you not simply leave out global and go with brand.com or .net?
Just wondering,
-
I don't think it maters to Google, but it does maters to the person searching. I think that using a hyphenated domain increases the readability of the URL and therefore leads to better CTRs (and thus to a tiny advantage in rankings).
Also if someone misspells your brand name it's easier to scan in the SERPS what you were looking for (e.g. searching for "brant product" leads to brand-global.com, which I think is a lot easier to read then brandglobal.com)Personat opinion, withouth any data: most ppl. tend to use hyphens when typing in a name.[edited]
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My site got hacked and now i have 1000s of 404 pages and backlinks. Should i transfer my site to a new domain name and start again?
My site was hacked and I had 1000s of pages that should not exist created and has had 1000s of backlinks put in. Now i have the same pages and backlinks redirecting to 404 pages. Is this why my site crashed out of google and my SEO fixes since have made no progress to my problem?
Industry News | | KeithWarbyUK0 -
Time to Separate Company Websites or Keep it on One Domain?
Hey Everyone! I am completely stumped with what I should do for the scenario I find myself in… I’m hoping with your experience, you could guide me into the right direction. Let’s say our current website is Brown.com (Brown Group Inc.). We have a splash page, which links to two subfolders Brown Minerals (Brown.com/Minerals) and Brown Pet Products (Brown.com/Pet). Both of these are separate companies but owned by Brown Group Inc. Each company specializes in different industries, sell different products, have different customers and have different marketing. The only common thing the two companies have is the brand name “Brown” and owned by the same person. Brown Group Inc.
Industry News | | rminerals
(Brown.com) Brown Minerals
(Brown.com/Minerals) Brown Pet Products
(Brown.com/Pet) I work specifically for Brown Minerals. It is my job to develop a new website, build traffic to our website, improve our SEO rankings and to build the Brown Minerals online brand. I am afraid that the work I will be putting into building our online brand may not be as effective since we share the same domain name with Brown Pet Products, which their website is outdated, they have their own traffic, links, etc. specifically for their products & industry. My question is, should we keep both websites in subfolders on the existing domain name or should we separate the websites and put them on their own domain names (BrownMinerals.com and BrownPetProducts.com)? Thank you0 -
Where to find good SEO job applicants?
We're located in South Dakota, and I'm having a hard time getting qualified job applicants for an advanced SEO position. The ad has been placed on local job sites as well as careerbuilder.com and indeed.com. What other places do you recommend?
Industry News | | CFSSEO0 -
Paid links from directory listing and business listing sites are good or bad according to Penguin 2.1 update?
Hi Friends, Recently on October 4<sup>th</sup>, 2013, a new spam filtering algorithm got live named Penguin 21. / Penguin 5. The update goes after sites that may have purchased paid links. I would like to know is it safe, if we submit website details with links in paid directories, eg: https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/ (yahoo directory) and quality business listing sites provided the categories are related to our website. Our competitor sites having the backlinks from those kind of directories and they are performing (ranking) well in major search engines. May I know how Google treat these kinds of links according to this recent algorithm update?
Industry News | | zco_seo0 -
Changing Domains - How much link juice is lost with 301 redirect?
My company is thinking about rebranding and moving over to a new domain. While we dont have a lot of backlinks, we do have some very valuable ones that we hate to lose. That being said, I think we are in such an infancy that the backlinks we have shouldnt prevent us from rebranding if thats what we choose to do. I am just trying to get an idea of how moving to a new domain will effect the domain authority if we redirect all the pages? Is the best thing to do simply re-direct, or should we reach out to our most valuable links and let them know the domain/link has changed and hopefully they change their link to us? How much is lost by simply 301 every page? We are getting around 70 organic clicks per day and would rather not start from zero again 🙂
Industry News | | DemiGR0 -
What is the best way to share good content (and help myself in the process)
i spend a decent amount of my spare time browsing quora, stumbleupon, google reader, pulse, etc keeping up with all the different aspects of internet marketing when i come across a particuarly valuable piece of content i take a few seconds and share it using hootsuite on my linked, twitter, facebook (i spread them out so there is only one post a day) this rewards those who write valuable content but im not doing anything to benefit my site - www.sawwebmarketing.com im establishing myself as somebody who has good stuff to share to my potential clients.... what a quick, easy way to share the high quality things i come across that will create links for me as well? (short of writing my own blog post listing the high quality articles i found with my thoughts on each) thoughts? opinions? thanks everybody! Matthew
Industry News | | Mrupp440 -
Google: 7 Results on First page now (Good or Bad)?
Hi, So what are your thoughts on only 7 results on the first page of a search? Looks like its only in play for brands at the moment with increased sitelinks for the first result. I actually really like it, looks a lot better and its easier to take the overall information in on the page. I hope they role this out onto more generic terms as well. Should mean a higher CTR for those who have 'made it' to the first page. I suppose Google will pickup on a higher CTR on the ads well.
Industry News | | activitysuper0 -
Does anybody know why my domain name is up to sale?
One of my domain names is not showing on Google's search results, when I type the URL in nothing appears. I notice something to do with blocked, but I couldn't find the message again. When I type in the actual URL in the search box it comes up with the message that the domain is up for sale for $32 the year, but the strange thing is it is still registered to me and it's definitely not up for sale? I find this very strange has anybody got any ideas whatbn could be happening? I sent in what they call a trouble ticket to the domain parking service, so I'll see what their replies is This is the doamin www.whitby-.uk.net
Industry News | | whitbycottages0