Format of Domain Name for best Ranking

Advice appreciated on which domain name to buy, for highest ranking in Google and other major search engines, of a site selling e.g. brass widgets.

Is it best to have:
1) brasswidgets.biz (the only extension available)
2) brass-widgets.biz (the only extension available)
3) brasswidgets-1st.com
or
4) brass-widgets-1st.com
?

Am generally aware of other optimisation requirements for my pages, but understand that the right domain name gets you well up.

Thanks
English Fusspot

What top level domain you are choosing does not affect ranking. I would go for #1. However the domain name dosn't matter as much as you think, try to make it easy for your visitors.

English,

By all means buy all 3 domains, and put your website on #2 or if you are really really concerned even #1. I have seen a large number of examples of sites that rank well with their keywords in the domain, it has to do with how you promote the domain. Not just the domain itself. Requiem, is correct in that the domain is not always a windfall to ranking well, but this falls to consider how benefical these domains are from a linking standpoint. You have to use what you buy correctly. Like pluging the electric toaster in to toast bread, or charging the batteries in your electric razor. #1 is going to be good for the visitor, but most people these days, if you are just promoting online, are not really going to care a darn if they click your listing in the serps. If you are promoting say your site on the radio then, get something sort and sweet, with a dot.com. Actually keywords in the domains, and pages name the are formatted like #2 or #4 are the better.

this is really bad advice in my opinion. if you can choose between brass-balls.biz and brassballs.biz then....from a purely 'google rank' point of view....brass-balls.biz is the only choice.

no search results will ever find the domain 'brassballs.biz' searching for 'brass' or 'balls' or 'brass balls'. it will never happen. [strictly from a domain viewpoint.]

from a branding point of view...there may be better choices.

from a visitor recognition point of view....there may be better choices.

but not from a seo and ranking point of view.

i also think that 'brass-balls-1st.com' adds nothing to the value of the domain from a purely ranking perspective.

[phoenix makes all good points too.]

Yes, it would only be a additional 12-16 US dollars. Set a 301 redirect on the domains you are not using, that way it wouldn't be that bad if anyone likes to your secondary domains.

LOL :-)

Ok, Ohio buddy. Here are a test for you. Figure it out.

<p><a href="brasswidgets.biz">Brass widgets</a></p>
<p><a href="brass-widgets.biz">Brass widgets</a></p>
<p><a href="brasswidgets-1st.com">Brass widgets</a></p>
<p><a href="brass-widgets-1st.com">Brass widgets</a></p>
<p><a href="joes-place.nu">Brass widgets</a></p>

Thanks all for responses from across the water. As a novice to the subject, it is interesting stuff.

The advice seems to be that .biz ranks just as well as .com (my main market, by the way, is the USA; otherwise I would have .co.uk which is cheaper!).

I am trying to get a small sideline business going at minimum cost initially while I test it out – I have already paid for one domain name/hosting before I was advised that a domain name should reflect a frequently input search phrase. So I only want to pay for one more domain name for the time being (and as I understand it, each domain name requires a separate hosting charge). I will not be doing any other promotion, apart from the nuisance of having to develop lots of links!

I have now done a couple of tests myself:

1)
Ref hyphens or not (and also ref whether the right domain name affects ranking), - I have input into Google, as an example, “music theory”: I found that the site ranked #1 was “musictheory.net”, #4 was “musictheory.halifax.ns.ca”, #9 was “emusictheory.com”. And “music-theory.com” came 37th! (there were a couple in between that contain “music.theory”).

So it seems to me now from this that hyphens are out!? (I do not need to cater for anyone inputting just one of the words).

2)
If I input into Google “guitar chords.com”, #1 is “all-guitar-chords.com”. But if I input “guitar chords” (as you would), this site doesn’t appear anywhere in the top 40!

Your test, Requiem, looks highly relevant, but I am not into programming, so don’t understand it!


Incidentally, I have noticed that some top-ranked sites have no Meta keywords or descriptions at all.

Just as an aside, somebody referred me to “inventory.overture.com” - you are probably all aware of it or similar - incredibly useful for finding the most-used search phrases.

English Fusspot

My point in the reply to Ohio boy (zoolander), was that it is the link text that matter, not the domain. You could have the domain joes-place.com and still rank as #1 for "Brass widgets" if you have enough incoming link text that is "Brass widgets". The domain itself is irrelevant. However domainnames without a hyphen is often more friendly for humans.

Meta keywords no longer carries any weight at all with Google. So if you are optimizing for Google they are a waste of space. Meta description carries almost no weight (next to none), so your time is better spent writing better copy.