Use - or not for domain names

[pauledwards]

Hi there what is the best type of domain name if i have a keyword im targetting. Lets use 'very cool' as an example:

www.verycool.com

www.verycool.co.uk

www.very-cool.com

www.very-cool.co.uk

I am led to believe the .co.uk would be better in a UK index. I also got told - count as a space, therefore the best one above for Google UK is www.very-cool.co.uk ?

[My-Favourite-Holiday-Cottages]

Normaly I hear without, but have not seen any conclusive studys. I normaly see the non - outranking the same phrase with, but thats antidotal evidence.

This is where I would go with best practices for usability/branding, where at the very least short urls tend to work better.

Having an exact match via -'s can also look spammy at times. Though that might just be because of the sheer number of spammy sites that do.

[pauledwards]

Thanks everyone. Putting usability aside is it better seo for the - or without?

[MassivePrime]

Hi Paul,

From personal experience I would say get the TLD that is relevant to you, so if you want to rank on Google.co.uk I would go with www.verycool.co.uk. Of course ultimately you can rank in other languages but as standard practice we always start with the local extension that is most important to us

[My-Favourite-Holiday-Cottages]

If your /just/ targeting the UK, all the advice I have seen, along with the expectation is a .co.uk.

Personaly, I would avoid -'s in the url just due to the sheer number of people who struggle to work out which is the right 'line thing'.

[SaforwebDesign]

Hi pauledwards

for this example, i'll use www.verycool.com. It's better not to use -, because google finds your keyword as well if you write all off your words together. And .com is allways a better option than .*.uk.

you can selected your target area at google webmasters tools.