Dash or No Dash in the Domain

[YouGotMyMoney]

I have what I think 2 domains with dashes, might be 3. One is a health ins property 10 yrs old, the other is health ins too 3 yrs old. Like everyone else said the dashes dont matter for seo.

If your concerned about brandability, you can buy a domain that has a good brand name and 301 redirect it to the site with dashes.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I might be going with the dash....but....All other realistic options require a rather long domain name which I also believe is hard to brand.

The other question I would have for SEO gurus here is how much natural SEO would I be losing out on without insurance in the name if it's an insurance-related site.

After all, gohealth ranks well without "insurance" anywhere in the name. If "content is king" then I might just go with a business name.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

gohealth.com redirects to gohealthinsurance.com

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I think I'm gonna have to hunker down and spend more time looking for a name without a dash. sigh.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

are you looking at brand new domains or aged domains?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

New - I'm not sure there are aged for what I'm looking for BTW, .net and .biz and available for exactly what I'm looking for. I'm kinda a .com snob but maybe I should go with .net.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

then why not go for the .net?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I agree, I think I'm gonna grab the .net. It's the exact term I want. I have to get past that .net isn't the ugly red-headed step child of .com.

 

[Guest]

Here is another thought, but maybe not so relevant to John's question.

I found that if you are giving out your URL on the phone whether you have a dash or not is not as important as the length. I find that if you can get a short URL, no matter what the letters are (but nice if they are close to what the site is about) is better than a long one.

If your name is John Robert Thomas and you do business as J.R. Thomas Insurance Services, I'd suggest you get JRTINS.COM (which is available.) On the phone you can say "My website is (pause) J R T (pause) I N S" in a Morse-code cadence.... dot dot dot dash dot dot dot.

It is a lot better than saying "john robert thomas dash insurance" (often they will misspell something.)

Al
I am here.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

A long domain was not an option. Depending on the words included you have to stare at it to try and figure out where one word stops and the other begins.