Paying a premium or going with a hyphenated domain
-
Q1. I have two domains I am interested and the are available, however, they are "premium" at $1,000! According to GoDaddy, another domain site, just said available through action.
Any recommendations? If I have to pay, is there an auction site or broker you would recommend or another approach to try to get it at a lower price?Q2. The hyphenated domains are available and affordable. However some of the information I gathered on MOZ mentions Google flags it as spam. I believe that article was dated 2014. Is that still a risk or has Google through AI or something else determine spam another way now?
-
Q1.
I'm not a domainer, but it's been my general experience that trying to negotiate directly with the owner has a much wider range of risk/reward. In other words, you might be able to contact them and get it for $250, or they might be completely insane and want $250,000 for junk, even though every other person on earth knows that's ridiculous. With the fixed-price sales, you can at least make that decision of whether it's worth the price tag for you.
That decision, though, isn't primarily an SEO decision, IMO, it's a business decision. Paying $1,000 for the right domain could be an incredible bargain if this site is your bread and butter and the name is critical. It could be a huge waste of money if this is your personal blog and a hundred different names would do just as well. It's really hard to advise you in a vacuum. If you asked me if $1,000 was a good price for an iPad, I could confidently say "no", but the value of a domain is highly subjective.
Q2.
I don't believe there's any kind of outright penalty. Hyphenated domains do often correlate with spammy domains, and it may be one signal of many Google considers, but I think they look at it clustered with other factors (that's speculative on my part). So, if your domain looks spammy on other dimensions and you've got a hyphenated, keyword-loaded domain, then yes, it might cause you problems. I don't think you'll get whacked just because of the hyphens.
I do think that hyphenated domains have a general trust issue with humans, though. It's not insurmountable, but I tend to agree with Michael -- there's always a non-hyphenated variant or an alternate TLD (even a .co) that's worth considering. Unless you're Eugene's Discount Widgets and your board will not settle for an domain but a .com with those three words in it and no other words, there are probably non-hyphenated options worth exploring.
-
I have never been a fan of paying for "premium" domains, especially since Google put out that the TLD does not affect ranking. Anytime I am rolling out a new site I will just find the best available option that does not have a bunch of negative baggage associated with it. In general, you should expect to have a harder time ranking a URL with a hyphen in it, but if you are concerned you can always shop around for other .(dot) extensions.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain Extensions
I wanted to get everyone's thoughts on the new domain extensions that are now available. I'm considering buying a couple .lawyer and .attorney domains for clients. I noticed when I tried to buy these I was asked for verification if we're going to be offering legal services through the site. That led me to think that it may be possible in the future that with this verification, if it's required, that means that not just anybody can have these domain names. That leads me to think that it's possible that these domains may benefit from users searching for terms with "lawyer" or "attorney" in their search term. I haven't seen anything in terms of these domain extensions and SEO yet, but I'd like to know your thoughts as to how these will be treated in the future. I can imagine these will be more valuable than the old .net, .us, .info, etc., domains.
Algorithm Updates | | Millermore0 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Transfering newly created targeted landing pages on an existing domain to a new domain
Hi - Hope someone can help me with this please I have a question regarding if its possible or advisable to create and host targeted landing pages and a blog on an existing domain, and then move these pages only to a brand new domain? The existing site has good authority and is established. Due to tight timescales in delivery I suggested creating specific landing pages and installing a blog to build authority and trust over time to target completely new keywords. Also the new pages will be helped by the existing domain authority. I've just found out client may want a whole new site, complete with new branding etc and completely new domain in time. Has anyone experienced migrating specific pages and a blog across to a completely new domain and leaving the existing site as it was. I have a whole host of concerns over this, but the main one is that I will be building relationships and content to landing pages and the blog, aswell as linking out etc and then these URL's will have a re-direct on them, going to a completely new domain.
Algorithm Updates | | McCannSEO
Also, the existing domain could lose any authority gained as although I wont only be targeting these pages, these will be the main ones being optimised and this will look unnatural. Do I? A./ Create blog and new landing pages on existing domain eg - www.testing.com/blog
www.testing.com/new-landing-pages, and then migrate these across to a brand new domain. or B./ Create the new landing pages and blog and leave them on the existing domain - period? Concerns here;
Client wants to re-vamp and have a new style and these pages will not necessarily be supported by the existing site, there is no guarantee that we are even allowed to create new pages, let alone internal linking. or C./ Bite the bullet and simply suggest a brand new domain to start with and explain the timescales and its either complete new domain or work on existing one. If anybody else has any other ideas I would really appreciate them. The client is re-branding and the company who host the existing domain, might not want to support the new pages and blog. I was hoping to provide a short term and long term solution as a brand new domain will take time to build up, especially as they are also brand new keywords we are targeting. However, I dont want the existing domain to be hit with any penalties or flag anything un-natural to Google. Many thanks in advance for any advice.. Tracey0 -
.org appearing in browser search when .com is the primary domain
In most browsers, our visitors search for our domain and when they start typing the URL the drop down auto choices list .org as the first choice for our website. We do own the .org but it points to the .com and the .com is our primary domain. Why does .org seem to dominate Google search in this case? And since we have the .org forwarded to the .com, do we need to be concerned?
Algorithm Updates | | jimmyzig0 -
Www vs nonwww domain
Since about 5 years out site was launched as "www.example.com" but last June 2012, we relaunched new design but somehow went without www subdmain - "http://example.com". We didn't check that time but now find duplicate pages and very confused what next. Please answer: Do search engines penalize for the change of domain name? www.example.com vs example.com? How can go back (or, should we really?) to www.example.com? I did redirect .htaccess rewrite from nonwww to www - but now our site is launched as without www. Confused so Please advise ASAP. Thanks a Million
Algorithm Updates | | GreenBirdMedia0 -
Is purchasing domain names still relevant?
Our MD is requesting that we continue to renew a long list of domains that we purchased many years ago. Is this practice still relevant or is there more to be gained from SEO and keyword strategy on our own site? All of the domains are redirected to our main site, but the main reason for purchasing was to stop others using them. Can someone please advise? Don't want to be spending money on this if it is of no benefit to us at all.
Algorithm Updates | | DonaldRussell0 -
Was Panda applied at sub-domain or root-domain level?
Does anyone have any case studies or examples of sites where a specific sub-domain was hit by Panda while other sub-domains were fine? What's the general consensus on whether this was applied at the sub-domain or root-domain level? My thinking is that Google already knows broadly whether a "site" is a root-domain (e.g. SEOmoz) or a sub-domain (e.g. tumblr) and that they use this logic when rolling out Panda. I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions though?
Algorithm Updates | | TomCritchlow1 -
.Co Domains - Any thoughts?
Hi Guys I'm not sure which section this one belongs in as I didn't see a section for domains/tlds. I wanted an opinion on the future of .co domains. We own a gift company (www.xperiencedays.com), as well as a gift recommendation site (www.uniquegifts.net), and invested in a few gift occasion .co domains (www.birthdaygifts.co, christmasgifts.co etc). This was partly because they were cheap and easy to come by, but also with a hope that they soon gain some public recognition. My question therefore is whether anyone within SEOMOZ has an opinion on whether .co will be widely accepted, whether they will (as google claims) be treated as a non-country specific url, and early success stories you know of, and finally whether the recent news from Overstock to rebrand as O.co (http://www.overstock.com/guides/faqs-about-o-co) is the kick start that .co need. I realize that is more than one question
Algorithm Updates | | bigtimeseo2