Does the 'Dash' make a difference ?

[Bill Smith]

When choosing a domain name based on a keyword phrase - does it make any difference to SEs whether you use dashes or not ?

For example - you check 'hotbananaicecream' and find it's not available in a .com.

However hotbanana-icecream.com and hot-banana-icecream.com are both available.

As far as optimizing youir site is concerned - would either of those be equally SE friendly ? Or would you be better adding another word to keep the phrase without dashes - such as hotbananaicecreamtoday.com

I'm in that quandry right now (nothing to do with ice cream or bananas) - so any thoughts are very welcome.

[Laura]

AFAIK, the search engines are able to figure out the individual words without the help of dashes, although there are some who say there is an SEO benefit with dashes. In my personal experience and opinion, I stay away from dashes if at all possible.

[Bill Smith]

I have the idea in my head that without dashes is stronger and with dashes is weaker - but not sure whether I dreamed this or whether it's reality or folklore.

[bigcat1967]

Actually - I disagree. Use hotbanana-icecream dot com

Google counts the dash as a space - however, if you use more than two dashes, that's when it get's a little dicey...it may look spammy to Google. Hope this helps

[7 Days Ron]

In an experiment I am doing with Adsense for Domains, the dash domains do just as well as those that do not, but that is not the real world. However, I was surprised because in the real world of marketing the domains without the dashes do seem to do better. I found that when I was an affiliate and I see it now as an affiliate manager. Rarely do any sales come in from hyphenated domains.

[minstrel]

You'll find another discussion of this issue at Domain Names & Keyword Matching

[lexdino]

I know that this might be a little bit out of the topic but you can help yourself out by searching for a word that can be spelled in more than one way an example of which is "antispyware" which can also be spelled as "anti spyware" and "anti-spyware".
Try it on Google search and yopu will know what you're looking for.

[Bill Smith]

Thanks everyone - appreciate all the thoughts . . .

[JeanGrey]

I use dash when the URL becomes longer or if its not available. it all depends on the strategies you follow to promote a website.

[mla16]

I think it help the user to remember your URL if you have a long one..... in your example I would remember hotbanana-icecream more than hotbananaicecream as the longness of it has been taken away