On 16 Apr 2002, at 19:47, Collette McNeill wrote:

> >Think about it, fineemeralds is a complete thought...fine-emeralds is
> >ambiguous. The former may take a second longer or even a second
> >attempt to enter, but is far more likely to stick in ones mind than
> >fine-hyphenhere-emeralds.
> 
> I talked about this with my partner, who agrees with
> you.  His point is that, in the case of typing out a
> domain name for a business, any domain name other than
> the complete spelling of the business name means that
> you're hoping a user will guess at what you meant. I
> can't argue with that. 

You'll still be hoping that the user spells your business 
name the same way *you* do. E.g., 
"johnsusedcars.com" vs "jonsusedcars.com". Of course, 
if you're marketing dept has really been working, you 
can be safe using shorter versions (for example, Hawaii 
Central Credit Union uses hawaiicentracu.com) or 
company initials (ibm.com). (If marketing has *really* 
been working, Jon's Used Cars shows up in search 
engines, telephone directories, directory sites, etc.)

I don't mind having hyphens in domain names, 
personally. I'd avoid domain names that are too long - 
increases the chance of someone mistyping it.

That touches on the recommendation that when you 
register a domain name, register common mispellings, 
plus all the corresponding TLD - .org, .net, 
.blahblahwoofwoof.

David
dvjones(at)ksbe.edu
 

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