I’ve spent hours reading up on this, and can’t make a decision. Can anyone tell me your bottom line? But let me give you some background first:

I happened to stumble upon an incredibly good domain name that competitors would give their right arms for. I’m not going to list it, but let’s just say it’s "babyclothes.com" and "baby-clothes.com".

I’ve bought both domain names…. Now, according to theory, it would be wise to use "baby-clothes.com" as the primary source to market to search engines because they would all see the name as a keyword "baby clothes"

As far as being easy to remember, I’ve covered that too. Let’s say people accidentally type in "babyclothes.com" instead. Who cares? It will re-direct to the correct place. No problems there.

Having said all that, a part of me still thinks its ridiculous to market a hyphenated domain name. It just seems strange.

If I submitted "babyclothes.com" to Google, would it be that bad? Are hyphens really the holy grail to SEO?

Technorati Tags: baby clothes, bottom line, domain name, domain names, google, holy grail, primary source

If I have a domain name masked and to be redirected to a website I have set up [ http://www.examplewebsite.com goes to http://www.io.com/example-website/index.html ], will my search rankings be effected due to the masked webdomain forwarding?

Technorati Tags: domain name, example website, search rankings, webdomain

I’m interested in starting my own web site, I want to have the option to advertise. I will need my own website as opposed to wordpress or other free services.

I would appricate any advises in planning and design my site, but I want to have a benchmark rate to compare against.

The work includes:

1. Purchasing domain name
2. Set up hosting
3. Design site – simple site including following functions:
- categories, search, text / image boxes, header, ad placement areas
4. Launch site – I will maintain/ upload new content daily
I live in India/Bangalore.
Regards,

Technorati Tags: benchmark rate, domain name, image boxes, india bangalore, own website, placement areas, search text, text image

I’m interested in starting my own blog, but want to have the option to advertise. I will need my own website as opposed to wordpress or other free services.

I’m in the process of hiring a professional to develop and design my site, but I want to have a benchmark rate to compare against.

The work includes:

1. Purchasing domain name
2. Set up hosting
3. Design site – simple site including following functions:
- categories, search, text / image boxes, header, ad placement areas
4. Launch site – I will maintain/ upload new content daily

I live in Vancouver, Canada, if that makes any difference.

Any help will be much appreciated! Thanks in advance :)

- Teresa

Technorati Tags: benchmark rate, blog, domain name, image boxes, own website, placement areas, search text, text image, thanks in advance, vancouver canada

Is the domain name vitally important for placing for keywords?

The site I need a domain name for is an affiliate site, so high search engine placement is more important to me than branding. Is it vital that I structure the domain name around my keywords? Is the domain name of minor consequence compared to other factors like title and content? Or does it not matter at all?

Any help is appreciated.

Technorati Tags: consequence, domain name, high search engine placement, Search Engine Placement

Hi,

I currently run and own a sports related website that consists of sports articles, sports directory and a sports forum. I rank well with MSN, Yahoo and for a few keywords with Google. In fact, my site ranks well with yahoo when searching for sports articles; my site in the top 11.

I’d like to keep my current sports site and design the site more for sports articles and directory, since both are doing well.

That being said, I’d like to open up my own sports cards trading shop. I would sell products in an auction format. Visitors would signup for a weekly newsletter that would inform them of new auctions that have been added.

Should I design this sports auction store as another domain name? It would not hurt my search engine placement, penalize or ban me if I run two sports related websites and link them together?

Again, one of the sports sites I own is just a directory, forums and articles. The other would be my very own sports store in the format of auction style.

Technorati Tags: auction format, auction store, auction style, auctions, current sports, directory forums, domain name, google, own sports, Search Engine Placement, sports articles, sports auction, sports cards, sports directory, sports forum, sports store, weekly newsletter, yahoo

I literally typed the domain name into ask.com and lycos.com and it said the website does not exist. But on google it comes up as the 1st site when I type in just the name.

What can I do to get placement in ask, lycos etc?

Technorati Tags: domain name, google, lycos, placement

Hi- I have created a web site with a keyword rich domain name. However, it has no hyphens in it (lets call it mywebsite.com). I have since bought the hyphenated version of the domain name (my-web-site.com) and would like some strategic advice.

I have a PPC campaign with my first domain name through Yahoo and Google, and several sites already link to it. I really don’t like the hyphenated version of the domain name because I think it looks low class. Any ideas what I can do with it to optimize search placement?

Technorati Tags: domain name, google, hyphens, rich domain, search placement, yahoo