Site domain name question

**madisonbrent** · 10-28-2008, 05:56 AM

Im starting a new site, and I need a name. I read in a book that google will rank a domain name higher if it contains some keywords in it, but they need to have a "-" between the words.

For instance if I was in colorado and my name was coloradorealestate.com it would be better for the a search engine ranking if the name was colorado-real-estate.com when someone is searching those keywords. Now I realize name isnt everything, but I believe its one of many things that does help, so is it true having the "-" helps your site ranking if your name is basically made up of keywords your targeting?

So if this is true, and I use a name like I have shown above, but dont want to use that name on my marketing material, is it bad to have 3 or 4 other domains pointing at my main site? Does this hurt my ranking? Thinking is that the main domain name is just there to help it in search engines and I have other name pointing at the site that I use on marketing.

Finally, do names that just point at a site come up in search engines? I know you can describe the site when you submit the name to google, does that come up in a search engine if the name is only pointing at a site?

Thanks for any help, I hope I was clear.

**Codythebest** · 10-28-2008, 06:17 AM

No, you don't need the "-" in between. That will result with the same SERP anyway, but the domain is less valuable with "-".
Also, you don't need to submit it to Google. Google will come to it naturally...

**madisonbrent** · 10-28-2008, 06:39 AM

Interesting. SEO for dummies said it wont recognize the keywords in the domain if they are all run together. They say using a "-" between each word will help your ranking when someone searches keywords that are close to your site name. I dont know, I just know what I read. Now Im hearing two different things and not sure what to believe

**markbrian** · 10-28-2008, 08:12 AM

I keep hearing both that it will help or it will not matter. But in my case I cannot get the domains with the keywords I want unless I add -. So do you think it is bad to have a dash between every word just so I can get the domain/keyword combo I want?

And is length of the domain name an issue from what you have found? I am looking at a quite long name, but hear it is bad unless it is really memorable. What does everbody think?

**Codythebest** · 10-28-2008, 12:29 PM

It's easy.
You type Real Estate in Google and you see if you have more
california-real-estate.com than californiarealestate.com
or more
real-estate-homes-for-sale.com than realestatehomesforsale.com

The keywords will be in bold

**Brad** · 10-29-2008, 11:48 PM

Having keywords in your domain name is a great start to getting strong search rankings, if the business can be described by the domain go for it. If you are focused on promoting a brand that is not keyword rich, go with the brand! You dont want to confuse people!

The "-" factor. This is a tuff one for the domain. Some studies have showed that "-" in the domain name can be seem as a little spamy! But not so in the domain extension, see example below. Another factor to consider is the user that knows your business name and assumes the domain is the business name without "-" between words. If this is the case they have trouble finding you and may no find you. Of course you can as you mentioned register several domains and point them at the one. Search engines do not look down on this practice. From our opinion we recommend placing "-" in the domain extension, eg, (www)domin(dot com)/product-name. Doing it this way makes it easy for your end user finding you directly and keeps the search engines happy with easy to read extensions, after all these are normally your product pages or the money pages!

With indexing a domain that points at another domain, you could always disalow search engines from indexing via a Robots.txt file on the domain, include the following should do it. (* represents all search engine spiders)

User-agent: *
Disallow: domainname

**RaymondFong** · 11-06-2008, 10:46 PM

Simply put, search engines now have the ability to parse words within your domain name, so "-" are NOT necessary. Having said that, having too many dashes in your domain has been shown to be labeled as "spammy" by the Google, so you'll want to avoid "-s".

-s are fine in the Google AdWords content network (and even the search network), but when it comes to SEO, stay away if you can.

Raymond Fong

**Copybuild** · 11-10-2008, 12:40 AM

Keywords in domain name helps, but not a lot! It is just one of the factor that affects search engine ranking. Proper optimization on-page and off-page is what you need to prioritize. "-" is good for this kind of domain name - "foreignsexchange". If there is no separator, there is a possibility that searchengines would look at it as foreign-***-change. That is not good for your site.

**runnergoat** · 11-13-2008, 06:15 AM

madison, the domain name really doesn't matter. Having keywords in your domain used to help, but google caught on to people abusing the dashes in keywords, and now they don't count for anything. Building a good site with fetch you good rankings.

**fmike630** · 11-14-2008, 04:16 AM

I think one of the reasons that keywords in domain names are not that significant anymore is because of too many people trying to imitate sites that have or are near the top in those keywords.

The optimization of the site both online and off is more important. Researching who links to your competitor and developing high one way relevant unpaid links is what will earn you page rank and organic traffic.