Should use hypen in domain?

[TC Tan]

It have been quite sometime since my last visit. Recently I was thinking to buy a new domain. The problem is the name has been taken by other people. It is in 2 words, for example http://www.makemoney.com is taken. Only left is the name with hypen like
http://www.make-money.com

I just wonder anyone can help to give some advice whther I should get the hypen domain name or think of another outstanding and ease to remember name?


Thanks in advance

Toon Chooi Tan

[LeX]

Personally, I would try to think up of another name instead of using the hyphen.

[Albert]

If makemoney is a trademark you will get troubles with make-money too! It depends on what you are doing with your domain. My name as domain was taken too, also firstnamesurname. I think it would be a bad idea to use firstname-surname or surname[-]firstname. Look for another domain and register both, with and without -.

[Cael]

Tera-byte is very fine for me. I guess hypen or not isn't that important as long as you like the domain name. :)

[patrickw]

I think that having a hyphen in your domain name isn't that bad most of the time.

One of the times when it would not be too wise would be if you were planning on running an ad campaign (Tv, radio, etc) and expected people to remember your domain name. Chances are the person seeing/hearing your ad would forget all about that hyphen.

Tera-Byte.com is a good example of a company that is successful and is using a hyphen.

[sense]

absolutely do not use - if the name is not too long
I suggest you to find another one.

[gyrbo]

I use one www.site-32.com

[milkbar]

Having a hyphen in the domain name greatly reduces its' value. . . but that only matters if you want to sell it so. . .

[Stumbler]

My great-grandfather was a web-designer in the 1800's and I'll never forget what he told me:

Don't use hyphens in the domain, you could be shot or worse!!

Take heed young whiperrsnapper.

[jiminsd]

One of my domains has one. Sure, I would prefer the domain without it but my customers get to me just fine. Besides I liked it better that the next one available on my list without the hyphen.

[fatman]

There's an article on this on thesitewizard, discussing not just hyphenated names but a couple of other issues in getting a domain name:
http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml

(I should say, though, that I always seem to be forgetting the hyphen in names - tera-byte is a good example of a name I frequently mistype. But you should read that article for a better perspective on the issue.)