Should you buy a hyphenated domain name? In many cases, people are unable to buy an exact match domain name but the hyphenated one is available. Depending on your long term goals, a hyphenated domain (such as example-domain.com instead of exampledomain.com) can do a lot for your business, but severely limit your potential in other instances.
One of the key advantages of a hyphenated domain name is that it is nearly as good as an exact match domain name for SEO purposes. If your only goal is to rank on search engines, hyphenated domains can be a good buy and a good SEO strategy. However, if you plan on doing any branding, or you plan on marketing your website through channels like radio, print, or TV, then the hyphen can work against you. Even if people remember the name of the website, they might not remember the hyphen between words. Therefore, the owner of the hyphen-free domain name is going to be siphoning off a share of your traffic.
Copyright issues can also arise with hyphenated domain names. If someone has been selling a service under an original domain name for a period of time, he or she may be able to claim that your domain name is creating confusion, and may be able to claim ownership of your domain name. Normally this is not a problem if you are going after a name that is descriptive and does not carry any brand equity.
Getting back to the SEO advantages of hyphenated domain names, there are a couple of things to consider. It still takes time to rank for competitive keyword phrases, but you can get a bit of a lift from the domain name’s match to inbound anchor text pointing at the site. It may even be possible to push the envelope on linking by using more anchors that exactly match the keyword phrase in your domain name. We have also seen several cases in non-hyphenated domains where links to the domain name itself manage to get a site to rank for terms that are parsed out as keywords.
Therefore, if SEO is the only goal you have for your website, a hyphenated domain name can work wonders. In fact, you can get by with a .net, .org, and maybe even a .info if you want to be accessed only through search engine results or in PPC campaigns. If you ever plan on taking your click and mortar site into the brick and mortar world, you should then consider the acquisition of a site that has no hyphens in the domain name. There are some other considerations at this point in the game, but if you are just starting out, have limited funds, and plan to get a foothold with SEO traffic, then a hyphen is not always a bad thing.
