Having a hyphenated domain name doesn’t increase rankings on it’s own. You still have to add content and add links and I’ve neglected this site quite a bit over the years.

I registered seo-gold.com in 2004 and got it to PR6 at one point (about 2005) by linking to it from a lot of my other sites.

In about 6 years I’ve only added 21 pages because I don’t need to generate new SEO clients via lots of SEO traffic and have removed the vast majority of the backlinks I control (linked to my other sites instead as they make money from AdSense etc… while I sleep).

If you check backlinks via Yahoo you’ll find this domain only has 200 odd backlinks (including internal links) and that includes the nofollow links. There’s probably about 60 text links that count now (pass link benefit). Under the circumstances I’d expect the home page of this site to be around PR3 now, but it’s not the only domain I own where the PR died completely, but the SERPs remained (“SEO Tutorial” SERP for example).

Although not the ideal way to focus an online business, I spread my SEO type content thin:

http://www.45-year-old-millionaire.co.uk/
http://www.google-adsense-templates.co.uk/
http://www.morearnings.com/
http://www.seo-consultant-services.co.uk/

As it happens 2 of the 4 domains above should have better PR. Google just doesn’t like my SEO sites! I gave free SEO/WordPress themes away on http://www.morearnings.com/ and Yahoo reports almost 33,000 backlinks but the home page is PR1.

When I 301 redirect another domain to that domain and wait for it to be indexed a PageRank update it comes through as PR4, which tells me the PRs been downgraded (it’s a way to test if a domains PR has been downgraded). Like I said, Google doesn’t like my SEO relevant domains, though doesn’t appear to downgrade the SERPs, just the PR.

Might be because I used to sell text links from this domain (as part of the SEO service) and as I link to relevant sites of mine, maybe Google jumped to the conclusion the domain of mine I’d linked to had bought links from me and so downgraded the PR

It’s not downgraded SERPs relative to what you’d expect with the backlinks (I don’t work on links for my SEO sites as I don’t need new SEO clients: I turn more away several times more than I take on), so not a big deal.

Now http://www.free-recipes.co.uk/ is PR4 and has a real Google penalty and I don’t know why! Used to get up over 10,000 visitors a day, now under 1,000.

I know what I do works as my sites make over $50,000 a year from AdSense and similar make money online things (I publish my online earnings minus my SEO client revenue at http://www.45-year-old-millionaire.co.uk/).

BTW Alexa rankings doesn’t mean a great deal.

http://www.free-funny-jokes.com/ Alexa 200,000ish regularly breaks 10,000 visitors a day.

http://www.google-adsense-templates.co.uk/ Alexa 70,000ish and rarely breaks 2,000 visitors a day.

One of my newest sites http://www.general-election-2010.co.uk/ Alexa over 250,000 but is number one for General Election Poll and ranked high for loads of other election SERPs (UK general election is due soon, sites had over 4,000 comments and 25,000 votes in the main poll) and is currently seeing up to 5,000 unique visitors a day!

David

search engine shop

While Google sees searchengineshop.tld as:

searchengineshop

Which isn’t a real word.

You still have to do the SEO work, still need links, optimised content etc… so having a keyword rich hyphenated domain and doing nothing else won’t get you high traffic.

If you put exactly the same amount of SEO work into two domains:

search-engine-shop.tld
searchengineshop.tld

When it comes to the search phrases including the words “search engine shop” the hyphenated domain would rank slightly higher. It’s only a small boost, but if you are starting a new site go hyphenated unless branding is a major issue. On the other hand the above example hyphenated domain wouldn’t help with a SERP like Website Design, so it only helps with search phrases including one or more of the three words search, engine and shop (would help a little with a SERP like “Web Design Shop”.

David

Specifically the “Search Engine Optimization and 301 Redirects” section it covers your question.

Short answer is theoretically yes if you add a lot of links to the new domain you plan to 301 redirect to the original, but not what I’d spend my time and resources on (for it to work you MUST link to the new domain, it’s the links related to the new domain name that pass the SEO benefit).

Since this sort of thing happens in normal business (301 redirecting one domain to another to save link benefit) there’s no reason why the major search engines would treat this as blackhat SEO. Truth is you still have to do the SEO work in gaining links to that new domain and it’s NOT easy to gain links to a domain you have already 301 redirected!

David

e.g my company’s current domain name Zeus-Thrones.com has been going too long to drop it but still find themselves in need of better search engine presents. should they then buy fashionable-toilet-seats.com then use a nameserver pointer or .htaccess 301 redirect or meta-refresh on the domain name to get the most form the domain’s keywords and still get visitors to thier compnay named website. (assuming the company really does not want to move their site to another domain name)

also, I was looking at your page rank and alexa rating. Why not as high as it has to be if the above article is indeed correct.

I am just asking this question as I am looking for a good company to do my SEO

I misunderstood your first question a little. There is an SEO issue when you use a domain that’s all brand marketing. I’ve wrote a new article about it at http://www.seo-gold.com/brand-marketing-vs-search-engine-optimization.html

David

Yes, I think I had understood your post. The reason why I asked that is because I read in another prestigious blog that an important e-commerce company in Spain had bought for a large amount of money a domain that is equivalent to “gardening.tld” (that refers to the activity of the company) that pointed to its website. The actual name of the company (and its main domain) has nothing to do with the name of the activity. The blog mentioned that the company invested for SEO related reasons. So as you can see, it’s an equivalent example to the Amartinix.tld and gardening.tld question.

Could you shed some light on the benefits of this action?

Thanks!

You’ve misunderstood my SEO tutorial.

Assuming branding isn’t that important to you a domain like amartinixs.com (and the one you originally posted that’s for sale on SEDO) is a very bad choice for a gardening shop site.

The best domain name would be something like

gardening-shop.tld
gardening.tld
and similar

You ideally want your main SERP in the domain name.

Since domains like gardening.tld are long gone, the best you can normally do is what I’ve done with this site seo-gold.com. I have a main keyword (SEO) and an unimportant word (Gold) that could be used for branding. A gardening example might be:

amartinixs-gardening.tld
amartinixs-gardening-shop.tld
etc…

The hyphen – is very important, registering amartinixsgardening.tld is no better than registering a domain like gfdhgbjkgjy.tld for a gardening shop.

I’m about to create a premium links directory and was lucky that http://www.premium-links-directory.co.uk was available: Premium Links Directory is a main SERP, so the odd gem is still available.

David

I’ve got another question: Imagine I have a gardening shop named “Amartinixs”. According to your anchor text rule, I should buy the domain amartinixs.com

Now my question is, is there any SEO benefit in buying the domain gardening.com (in addition to amartinixs.com) and make it point to my website too?

Thanks!

Thank you for the information on domain names selection. The section on hyphenated domain names has been particularly useful. I have a wider selection now.