Hyphenated Domains are massively undervalued – A sharp price rise could be on the cards
For many years now hyphenated names have been thought of as the black sheep of the domaining family. The main reasons for this are the relatively low numbers of type in traffic they receive and the fact that the hyphenated name (if developed) may bleed traffic to the non hyphenated version.
I got into domaining pretty late so don’t have these prejudices and feel that the hyphen is a very undervalued segment of the domain market.
Take a look at a few sales that have been clocked up over the last few months:
Blue-Rey.net - $20,640
Open-Office.de - $17,520
Austria-Trend.com - $15,565
R-T.com - $14,600
Business-Adviser.com - $9,588
Motor-Insurance.com - $6,332
Niche-Gals.com - $5,432
24-hour.com - $4,000
So what are the benefits?
- Well firstly they are “cheap” – that is in comparison to their non hyphenated brothers.
- Search engines love them as they have the targeted keywords they look for and the hyphen is not viewed negatively.
- Companies and end users like premium keyword domains and aren’t put off by the hyphen, they are favoured over brandables.
- They are a business in a box. Generic keywords will always be generic even if separated by a hyphen, e.g. Solar-Energy.com, Teddy-Bears.com – both names are clear and descriptive, so you know what you will be getting when you visit the site. Names like these are a business in a box, all you need to do is develop them.
I’ve been a big buyer of hyphenated names recently and I know I’m not alone as I’ve just turned down $25,000 for L-A.com as I have plans for the name. Still I get quite a few offers for it and maybe someday someone will prise it from my hands before I move forward with my development plans.
Oh yes I’m selling P-Q.com, so if anyone is interested please contact me at: james@floatingmix.com
James
Todays Featured Domains:
Suwo.com - $2500
22y.com - $2500
22s.com - $2500
s40.com - $3000
Raw.Biz - $1750
Branding.Biz - $1750
If interested please e-mail: james@floatingmix.com – buyer to pay Escrow.
Some companies use hyphenated domains as I suppose this is a way to obtain the keywords they seek without having to acquire a domain in the aftermarket. I do have some but generally don’t seek out hyphenated domains as the demand for such domains is not nearly as strong. When turning down an offer one should consider the odds of acquiring another higher offer and what one could realistically make off of development. Other than minisites, true development is time-consuming and can only be done on a limited number of domains.
Best of luck.
You go buy up those hyphens dude. Have fun.
Yep. Learned this the hard way myself.
“Hello Sir. Would you like to buy advertising on sydney dash homes dot org?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said Sydney dash homes dot org”
“One more time?”
Nightmare from start to finish. Wouldn’t build on it.
I like the arguments above for hyphenated domains but they are really just for search engine results and pure Internet traffic. I would not build a business on a hyphenated name.
1. Too hard to say over the phone.
2. People will forget to type in the dash and you will bleed traffic to the not hyphen name.
My first domain was a hyphenated domain which I built back in the mid to late 90’s. I built the site where it was receiving over 1-million hits per month.
Unfortunately I forgot to renew the domain - OUCH!
J.R.
Hyphenated Domains are massively undervalued …
Stuck in the web-centric domain world nay-sayers value anything that isn’t a generic keyword or .com as ‘reg-fees’ As such we aren’t stuck in the Pizza.com box… obviously we like 1-Pizza.com and our 9 other hyphenated pizza keyword domain names…