Hyphens versus numbers in domain name.

What's better cages-for-birds.com or cages4birds.com? I thought having the number is better, because the url is shorter, but Google seems to see the "for" if someone types it into search. Am I way off?

I don't dare change over the domain on my forum, but I started up a bunch of other domains, and it's still early with them. They won't lose much if I change over now. I know (or think) cagesforbirds.com would be best, but most of the time it's taken or on sale for a couple grand.

I always prefer domain names which can be easily pronounced.

So no numbers then?

When I started my forum, I actually had the number in the logo. It was Forum 4 Women. Later, I changed everything over to Forum for Women but the domain. Now, it just kind of bothers me having that stupid 4 in the url. The domain forumforwomen is over a grand, and since I am not making any money on my forum (a hobby kind of thing) I had no interest in paying that much for a domain. I do have forum-for-women.com though and just think it looks better than the url with a 4 in it.

I know changing domain hurt rank and such, but since I'm not making money on it anyways, might as well. I think I'd rather do it now than wait until I have time to turn it into more than just a hobby. I just think new members won't want to join, because the domain doesn't match the logo.

Hi Christina,

The logo may be a simple phrase, or even a picture, and either of them brings no better SEO to your site. Furthermore, updating a logo or "photoshoping" a new banner is way easier than changing domain names.

Switching the domain name now gives you a chance to retrieve any traffic that may be lost, and it is better if you do it yesterday than within a few days/months/years. IMO, "forum-for-women" looks way better than "forum4women"

Thank you so much! Yes, I will work on it this weekend. I want to be sure and do the 301 redirect properly so I don't get into trouble.

I agree. I can't believe I never had even thought to check and see if forum-for-women was available until two days ago when I was cleaning out domains. I'm working on a whole network, and each domain is either forwomen or -for-women, so this will work out great. I thought I was so clever 3 years ago, but that 4 just doesn't belong. I was going to somehow tie it into a 4 generations theme, but that was way too deep.

I know about the logo. Right now it's just an image with the h1 showing to guests.

I changed domains, and my forum has been out of business for 3 days! I am finally fixing the mess left by my lovely host site. Took them a day to change the files over, then another day until I figured out that they hadn't changed over the ownership so I couldn't do anything with the files (they had no idea what the issue was). Once they changed over ownership, my site was a total 403 Forbidden. They finally figured out what happened this morning. I could see the forum, but all urls were a 404. Here I thought the issue was with the database (wasn't sure how much of the urls were stored there) come to find out my host wiped out the .htaccess file so the vbseo urls weren't working. I would have never thought of it had I not turned off vbseo and suddenly everything worked. That pointed me to the .htaccess file that was empty.....ack!

vbseo is on and all urls seem to be working now. Whew.

Just a reminder to watch out for those that would meddle with your files without knowing what they are doing. At least they had a backup of it in the folder. That made it easy to cut and paste back. Of course, I have backups, but was nice and easy that way.

I'm sorry to hear that you had this awful experience, Christina. However, I hope that things can go well for you from now on.

Thank you for your feedback! I truly wish you success with your new domain name