Should You Use Hyphens in Domain Names?

What your domain should include or not include has been an ongoing switzerland telegram data discussion among brands, webmasters and marketers. Should a domain include special characters like hyphens or underscores? Does having special characters negatively impact my SEO? All these questions have been asked over and over and different schools of thought exist to try and settle the matter. In this article, we look at whether hyphens should be used in domain names, taking into consideration the different sentiments. We also discuss whether they have any effect on your site’s SEO. We will then come to a fact-based conclusion on their use or lack thereof.

The pro-hyphen use school of thought

This school of thought argues that hyphens should drag and drop functionality used as part of domain names. Here are the reasons why:

• They help make domain names readable – using hyphens makes easier for both people and search engines to read your domain name, therefore, get a clue about what the site or business is all about. Search engines see hyphens as separators and can help to clarify what a web page’s subject matter is. An example is when a search engine may misunderstand a domain name as it ‘split’ it in the wrong place. Here are some examples where this may be necessary:
• They allow you to distinguish between geographic locations – you can use hyphens to separate the location name from the rest of the domain.

The anti-hyphen use school of thought

Here are the arguments brought to the fore by people in this school of thought: phone number list

• • • Using hyphens makes domain names seem untrustworthy and less credible.
  • • Hyphenated domains are difficult to remember and talk about. When a user is told about your business or domain name by a friend, for example, the friend will have to belabor the point that the domain name includes hyphens. The recipient is highly likely to forget to use the hyphens when entering your domain name.
  • • They reflect a brand as incompetent.
  • • If a user misses even a single hyphen when typing your brand name, they are highly likely to end up on your competitor’s site or web page.