When to Choose Domain Names with Hyphens
When buying a domain name for your business or new website venture, you have to carefully weigh every aspect of the name. A poorly chosen name reflects poorly on you, and your visitors may subconsciously distrust your site because of subtle cues. If your domain name is too long, contains unnecessary words, ends in something other than .com/.net/.org, or contains too many hyphens, your visitors could have trouble remembering the name, or they might view your site as spam.
Whether or not to use hyphens can be a difficult decision. Hyphens break up words to make the domain name easier to read, but they are more cumbersome to type. Too many hyphens in a name can make people think your site is low quality or too new to be trustworthy. Yet, adding hyphens to the domain name may help you get the name you want if the unhyphenated version is already claimed. Here are some guidelines and tips to help you make the best decision.
(1) Hyphens are just fine for two-word domain, acceptable for three-word domains if each word is short, but beyond three words you should avoid hyphens. In fact, you should avoid names longer than three words with or without hyphens.
(2) You can use hyphens to separate your business name's abbreviation from the product that you sell. For example, if your business's abbreviated name is QWX and you sell shoes, then you could buy either (0r both of) qwx-shoes.com or qwxshoes.com.
(3) You can completely hyphenate your domain name if it contains a compound word that is hyphenated in English. For example, the phrase "well-written" is correctly written with a hyphen. If you own a freelance copywriting business, you could purchase the domain well-written-copy.com. This looks more professional than wellwritten-copy.com or well-writtencopy.com, which are only partially hyphenated.
(4) Avoid hyphenating a word not hyphenated in English. For instance, "breakfast" is not hyphenated, so a domain name containing "break-fast" would not be appropriate for a website about the first meal of the day.
(5) If you have to choose between adding a single hyphen to your preferred domain name, or buying a more obscure TLD such as .info, .me, .biz, .ws, or .co, then you should opt for the hyphen. It is easier for web surfers to remember one hyphen than one of the newer TLDs. For instance, if chocolateshoes.com/.net/.org are all taken, it's usually better to buy chocolate-shoes.com rather than chocolateshoes.biz.
These are not rules set in stone, but rather points to consider when you shop for domain names. Use your judgment and examine each option to weigh the pros and cons. The best strategy is to buy all of the available domain names with and without hyphens so that your competitors don't squat on the good ones. Poll your friends and family to see which names are easier to type and remember.
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Comments
Good guidelines on hyphenated domains. Most articles about this topic are very confusing. Your guidelines will help people make the right choice when they are selecting a name.
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