Any internet marketer will tell you that getting hold of a domain name is the first step to setting up an online business. In reality, it is no longer as easy to find good domain names that have not been taken yet. It is definitely a whole lot less stressful to find domain names with hyphens. But is that recommended at all?

Here’s a quick recap of the qualities of a good domain name. A domain name should be directly related to your business, simple to remember, preferably contain one or two keywords and not be disputed. An ideal domain name should be a maximum of seven characters, the shorter the better. Given the scarcity of short domain names you may have to eventually settle for a domain name that is longer than seven characters.

Imagine you’ve just set up a new flower delivery business and you are looking for a domain name that fulfils all the criteria of being a good domain name. You realize that the domain name flowers.com is already taken. Should you settle for a hyphenated domain name such as flowers-delivery.com? Hyphenated domain names should definitely never be your first choice. There may be a few exceptions to this rule.

The main reason why you would opt for a hyphenated domain name in the first place would be if it is imperative for you to have certain words in your domain name and all such non-hyphenated domain names that contain these words have been taken.

In very rare cases, you may have words that are difficult to read unless they are broken up by hyphens. This is especially true when the domain name is made up of two words and the last letter of the first word and the first letter of the second word are the same. For instance, alpprojects.com becomes much clearer when you add hyphens to transform it into alp-projects.com. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily make the domain name into a good domain name.

Some people insist that search engines can read keywords with greater ease when the domain names contain hyphens. The argument here is that search engine rankings are perpetually fluctuating and are dynamic. This is because search engines are continuously modifying their search algorithms. Therefore, if the only reason that you are considering a hyphenated domain name is just to boost your search engine rankings, keep in mind that there is no sure shot chance that it will work.

Sometimes, you may need to use a hyphen if your domain name unintentionally seems to be a pun. To illustrate the point, take a look at the domain name therapistfinder.com. This is among the exceptional cases when a hyphen may actually add value.

As is evident, using a hyphen is definitely not the best option. For some reason if you do opt for a hyphenated domain name, keep in mind that most people will forget about the hyphen when they type in your domain name. As a result, you will lose out on type-in traffic which constitutes a large chunk of your total traffic. Secondly, your visitors will land up at the site that has the non-hyphenated version of your domain name at the expense of your money and effort.

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