Should you get a hyphenated domain name?

Disadvantages:

1. It’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things BuyWidgetsHere.com but not buy-widgets-here.com. They’ll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor’s site.

2. When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “buy-widgets-here.com”? They might say, “I visited Buy Widgets Here dot com yesterday and it was great! When the friends go to the site, they don’t type in the hyphens.

3. It is difficult to type. The hyphen key on the keyboard is just not an easy one to use. Even proficient typists often do not have a good grasp of the symbols.

Advantages:

1. Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.

2. The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.

I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say about domain names. Please leave a comment…