Do hyphens in domain names help or hurt SEO performance?
Question 
Q: I was wondering does it matter if your domain name is done with a hyphen? Would that hurt your rankings at all?
Like if I had www.mydomain.com or www.my-domain.com If SEO was done correctly on the site would it really matter what the domain name was?
Answer: -
Domains that contain the target keyword seem to have a positive impact on SEO performance. So if you do a search for 'reverse mortgage,' you will see many websites that have the words 'reverse mortgage' in their domain and/or in the URL's themselves. So, if possible, I do recommend that you try to secure a domain that contains your target keyword in it.
But do not overdo it! ONE dash ONLY. So reverse-mortgage.com is good but reverse-mortgage-for-florida-homes.com looks spammy. Secondly, realize that the domain itself is only one attribute, and that others such as the website content itself, whether there are many or just a few pages on the website, of course the backlinks and social mentions... all of these other factors are just as important, if not more so. The domain itself is just ONE factor. There was what is called an EMD update that penalized 'thin' websites, that is Exact Match Domains but not much content there. Further indication that the domain itself is only one factor.
So, in sum, one dash only. That is good and OK.
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Hope this helps!
- Jason McDonald
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