Hyphenated Domains: Are They Still a Smart Choice?

As more businesses and individuals establish their online presence, the demand for domain names continues to increase. For that very reason, it is extremely challenging to find a domain that is both available and brand-aligned.

Sometimes, to make readability easier, you may prefer such a domain that is taken in its original form. This is where hyphenated domains come to the rescue.

Hyphenated domains insert one or more hyphens to separate words, either to make them clearer or to obtain a version of a domain already taken without the hyphen. This blog will discuss whether hyphenated domains are still valid in today’s time. Read on!

Should You Consider a Hyphenated Domain for Your Website?

Before you decide, it’s important to weigh both the benefits and drawbacks of using hyphens in your domain name.

Let’s break down the key pros and cons to help you make an informed choice:

Pros of Hyphenated Domains

When it comes to domains, SEO rankings tend to be one of the biggest concerns because they will determine the success of your venture. Considering that the presence of hyphens in the domain will have an impact on SEO, the pros of using hyphenated domains are:

Improve Readability

Use a hyphen if a brand or project name consists of two or more consecutive words, thus enhancing readability. Remember that if your brand name already contains a hyphen, retaining it in your URL will maintain consistency and avoid confusion.

When using words that are ordinarily hyphenated, the minus sign in the domain is a treasured way of remembering the domain. 

Identify Geographic Locations

A common practice among local businesses is advertising in local newspapers and on billboards. In these cases, they tend to keep a hyphen between the business name and location to ensure readability. Following this same practice in the domain name will ensure consistency, saving your customers from confusion. 

Defensive Domain Registration

You can consider buying a hyphenated domain name to prevent your competitors from buying it. This will help you stop your competitors from capturing traffic from visitors who were targeting your website. 

Additionally, purchasing all these variations of your domain name will also help preserve your customers. This is because some customers might inadvertently add hyphens, often becoming victims of typosquatters who direct them to a fake website and steal their data. However, this will harm your brand’s reputation. 

Alternative for Unavailable Domain

If you have finally settled on a name that is not already in use, you can opt for a hyphenated domain name that establishes legal ownership for the brand you want to secure. 

Be wary here, though, as it might infringe on someone’s rights if they believe you are typosquatting. Also, before registering, ensure that the present domain is attached to a valid website. 

Cons of Hyphenated Domains

Google’s algorithms determine SEO rankings, and understanding how Google perceives hyphenated domains is crucial. Keeping this logic in mind, the cons of using hyphenated domains are:

Potential Legal Issues

Giving a business the name of one that is already operational will likely expose it to potential legal issues regarding trademark and intellectual property law breaches. Rather, tunnel your choice into a unique domain name that represents your brand and gives you a larger space to develop its own reputation.

Perceived as Less Credible

Hyphenated domains are often considered inferior to unhyphenated domains, which can make your brand appear less credible. Hyphenated domains tend to suggest that you compromised because you couldn’t get an unhyphenated one. However, customers would not like to deal with a company that is willing to compromise its reputation. 

Difficult to Remember and Communicate

Another disadvantage of hyphenated domains is that they are difficult to remember and talk about. This is because if you are quoting your business name, it is easy to do, but the moment you add a hyphen or two to it, they become syllables that are unnecessary and most likely to be forgotten.

Things to Consider When Using Hyphens in Your Domain Name

Here are some key points to keep in mind before choosing a hyphenated domain:

1. Brand Perception: When compared to neat, unhyphenated alternatives, users may perceive hyphenated domains as less trustworthy or professional.  This may impact the credibility of your brand.
2. Communication Ease: Hyphens are easily overlooked when typing or speaking out loud, which makes the domain more difficult to remember or share orally, particularly in marketing campaigns, podcasts, or word-of-mouth recommendations.
3. User Errors and Lost Traffic: When visitors fail to use the hyphen, they may end up on a rival website or one that is unrelated.  Potential clients, conversions, and traffic may all suffer as a result.
4. Implications for SEO: Although hyphens can enhance a domain name’s readability for search engines, they don’t directly impact a domain’s ranking.  It has been observed that Google favours domains that seem more user-friendly and brandable.

Final Words

While you can use hyphens in your domain, and there is nothing specific in Google’s algorithm that will put you at a disadvantage for doing so, you should avoid doing so.

This is because hyphens can look unprofessional and are also difficult to remember. By using hyphenated domains, you risk losing your traffic to your competitors. An unhyphenated domain tends to have a better user perception and trust. 

However, to ensure the success of your website, choose a service provider like BigRock, as it offers reliable services such as domain registration, domain privacy, bulk domain transfer, and more.

Contact us now for more details!