Brandability of domains that have a dash in them

[Malikbhai]

Keeping aside the SEO part of the element, because it's irrelevant; are domains with a dash in them brandable? There are many popular websites that have a dash in their name. Clearly, their owners don't mind one bit.

Thoughts?

[Cash Bonus]

Hi Malikbhai, i personally find that using dashes is a bad idea as most people don't use dashes in their website names. I used to have a domain name that had four dashes in it and Google had no intention of giving it a good page rank, no matter how much social advertising I did for this website.

[RacingJim]

I think it's probably a bit outdated now and had it's place back when keywords in the domain name scored very high as a ranking signal.

Depends what you're doing though, as I think those domains can still have their place sometimes.

[TheGooner]

I think that a website that needs a dash feels like a cheap entrant / copycat

Which popular domains do you use with a dash in them?
I don't see many (any) in my favourites.

Throw us a good example or two.

[NecatBet]

Hello Together, the binds with the stricht is not very good unfortunately. for SEO or on for the name. I agree with all the other forum friends who wrote this.

[-Shay-]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

[pokeraussie]

The problem is most good domain names are taken already so you sometimes have no option but to consider hyphens. But to answer your question no hyphen domains are not brandable.

[xecutable]

Thing is though, neither are exact match domains with generic words. Bestonlinecasinos or Best-online-casinos, in terms of branding doubt either would be.

In terms of what we use today as big websites, it's not like they use exact match domains. Google = BestSearchEngineOnline, Amazon = BiggestOnlineShop, Netflix = Watchmoviesonline. The list goes on.

I think a lot of people are stuck in the early 2000s where an exact match gave you a significant advantage. For the sake of the thread I'd say that half the ppl will forget to put the hyphen and the traffic would be going elsewhere if it's a popular phrase.

By all means thought if you think it's doable do it. Dont let our opinions get in your way

[Triple7]

I think that a website that needs a dash feels like a cheap entrant / copycat

Which popular domains do you use with a dash in them?
I don't see many (any) in my favourites.

Throw us a good example or two.

Casino-professor.com. However casinorofessor.com redirects to them. I think if that was not the case, it might cost them some returning traffic.

[MJM]

Thing is though, neither are exact match domains with generic words. Bestonlinecasinos or Best-online-casinos, in terms of branding doubt either would be.

In terms of what we use today as big websites, it's not like they use exact match domains. Google = BestSearchEngineOnline, Amazon = BiggestOnlineShop, Netflix = Watchmoviesonline. The list goes on.

I think a lot of people are stuck in the early 2000s where an exact match gave you a significant advantage. For the sake of the thread I'd say that half the ppl will forget to put the hyphen and the traffic would be going elsewhere if it's a popular phrase.

By all means thought if you think it's doable do it. Dont let our opinions get in your way

In my opinion your logic is flawed, while I think it's true that BestOnlineCasinoSiteGuy2k2.com is not brandable - highly generic names are also among the best brandable ones - using variatoins of your examples: onlinecasinos, bestcasinos, and bestonlinecasinos to a lesser extent are highly brandable along with the generic keyword. So while I agree with you on most of what you said, I'm pointing out that the best of the best generic kw domains are also among the best brandable - two birds one stone, which is why they are still highly valuable and very much in demand.

Brandable = memorable and easy to say. A dash requires too much explanation to be brandable, same as where a longtail generic kw is too long to be easily remembered - but any of the examples of one/two word category killer domains are the perfect combination of both.