Is this good practice if not over-used? I have done this with two domains and I am wondering if there is anything negative associated with this practice as far as search engines go. I had one friend who wanted a website for his O'Connell Extreme Fitness site and he wanted oxf.com, which was taken. oxfusa.com looked weird, so we decided on oxf-usa.com since he may be franchising it in the future.

I am just curious if this is frowned upon in terms of search engine placment, people's ability to remember it, etc?

Thanks

That will make domain name less memorable perhaps, but SEO will not hurt. That's for sure

You can use that in your domain name. Do not worry that will not hurt your SEO, however that can make your domain name less memorable

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

That will make domain name less memorable perhaps, but SEO will not hurt. That's for sure

Originally Posted by SiberForum

You can use that in your domain name. Do not worry that will not hurt your SEO, however that can make your domain name less memorable

Obviously separated at birth!!

Dashes causes unnecessary problems. When somebody mentions a website with dash on the name to another, in most cases I saw they don't mention the dash (this forum name mentioned on others for example).

If i were you i will not use dashes! is much better.... less confusion........

the best option is to register both

It depends what you goal is, if you are looking for a good domain for SEO reasons use a Dash. Google and Bing see a dash as a space for domains. However like other people have mentioned it will make it harder for people to remember what to type in. So register both if you can.

Originally Posted by jayrob

It depends what you goal is, if you are looking for a good domain for SEO reasons use a Dash. Google and Bing see a dash as a space for domains. However like other people have mentioned it will make it harder for people to remember what to type in. So register both if you can.

can you tell for sure that my domain artphotoasia.net is less important to SEO than art-photo-asia.net ???

there are any differences???

No it isn't

Yes I do think there are not difference...

thanks

Originally Posted by ArtphotoasiA

Yes I do think there are not difference...

thanks

No difference for the SE bots but for human being it will much more difficult to remember such name

Originally Posted by ArtphotoasiA

can you tell for sure that my domain artphotoasia.net is less important to SEO than art-photo-asia.net ???

there are any differences???

In human user's point of view, domain without hyphen is much easier to remember than the one with hyphen. On the other hand, in search engine bot's point of view, the two are just the same; they are both SEO friendly.

Thank you guys for answering...

Originally Posted by noe

the best option is to register both

I agree.

if you use too many "-" google might see ur site as spam.

I have a site with 2 dash and it's fine. No probs with seo.

but dash will make it difficult to remember and difficult to type.

if you use too many "-" google might see ur site as spam.

I do not agree. Google does not pay any attention to that

but dash will make it difficult to remember and difficult to type.

I agree

In increasingly competitive fields it's almost becoming necessary to have a dash in your domain name, as most of the memorable names have already been gobbled up.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Obviously separated at birth!!

LOL!

One of my sites uses dashes and since my intent was to get all of my traffic from the SEs, the dashes didn't matter to me. If I had a brick and mortar business and was advertising my store's website on a billboard or something, without the dashes *might* be easier for someone to go home and remember if they wanted to check out my business. But if the name you really want is taken, I would use dashes in order to get the name you want.