Which option is better if the .com I wanted is taken?

[jjschade]

If it's a two words domain name to the left of the period, and the .com version is taken, should I pick a different extension, or hyphenate the two words, considering all pros and cons having to do with site visitor familiarily, search engine stuff, and all other factors that could help or hurt in the long run.

i.e. I want www.johndoe.com but it's taken. Which is better if both are available, www.john-doe.com or www.johndoe.net?

Different people have given me different opinions. Person #1 claims that if someone googles john doe and I hypenated it, my search engine priority would be below all other extenstions such as johndoe.net, johndoe.org, johndoe.info, unless I purchased SEO software and provided 'john-doe' as a keyword to get it bumped up with the search engine. (this person sells such software and viewed me as a possible registrar customer, so they may be biased). But he went on to say that if someone googled 'john doe' without the hypen, it wouldn't matter which extension you picked, it would rank just as high as .com if I had chosen .org, .net, .info, etc.

Another person said that they use hyphens all the time even when they don't have to in order to make it easier on search engines to split up words that would otherwise run together. (even when there's no risk of the search engine splitting the words in the wrong places). He uses lots of sub-domains for motorcycle discussion sites, for example he would do something like...

yamaha-750.cycletalk.com instead of yamaha750.cycletalk.com

For the purposes of this post, assume that choosing an alternate besides .com would NOT require me to choose one that was not accurately descriptive. i.e. I would not be forced to choose .org when it's not really an organization, or .info when it's not really a site that provides info.

Of course, .net could be used for anything.

Assume I have no choice with what the two words would be. I can't say 'johndowspeaks' or 'johndoereports'

The two words I'm using, and ONLY two, has no other option. They're either hypenated, or not. I can't add to or remove either of the two words.

Thoughts?

[svidgen]

Google can see past your hyphens. I think you'll be safe either way. Be more considerate to what your users will be more likely to remember.

I would just get both and point them both at the same docroot. When submit to directories and such, use the one you think is more memorable to humans.

[jjschade]

I'm not sure how much relevance there is in domain name keywords these days when it comes to SEO. For example, is it considered an advantage if I choose something really odd but unique, so that IF the person can at least remember the word enough to google it, it's bound to be higher on the list? i.e. instead of 'political report' you have 'drudge report' which would produce www.drudgereport.com first every time, followed by tons of other free publicity out there when all the links following it are for pages about Matt Drudge? If you picked 'American Report' or 'Political Report' I would think it's harder to climb to the top. Maybe. Or is it considered an advantage to pick a word that is more likely to be typed in by people looking for something totally different from your site, with the idea being they might stumble across yours and want to check it out when they weren't even looking for it to begin with? If the site uses vanilla names like 'patriot news' or 'political report' and people type in just ONE of those four words, they've now typed half of your domain name, if that's worth much.

Another consideration, if SEO's value the user's search keyword being embedded a lot in your site, and my name is odd and only appears in the domain and once or twice in the sites readable text, is that a bad choice of domain names?

I just don't know that much about search engine optimization.

Next question....is it a disadvantage to have a domain parked at one host, while the site it points to is hosted at a different host? I don't know the logistics and order when the browser first starts looking for you URL, but I'm wondering if things are slowed down at all surfing wise, or if added more parties to the mix increases the risk that if one of their sites go down, I go down too. If the browser first has to go to some domain directory, find out it's 'maintained' at XYZ host, then transfer once again to the site host itself cause it's being 'pointed' there...that's more work. If the registered host where it's 'parked' simply did paperwork, and have done little more than stored it on another computer someplace where ALL domain names reside, until such time that I transfer the domain, then it's not slowing me down at all since the requesting user never really involves that site's hardware...it would go to the domain name directory hardware, then to the site, no matter where my site is hosted.
Thanks.

p.s. - There's also the issue of 'brand' in a web site. Do you think the unusual name helps there? Drudge is a good example. It's linked to a personality, a real person. I came across a crazy site the other day, with a crazy name.....theonion.com it was easy as git out to remember it, even though the name has nothing to do with what someone who doesn't know about it might type into a search engine to stumble across it, which some may argue should not be a motivator in choosing a domain name anyway (trying to find people not looking for your topic). theonion.com obviously sacrificed having a domain name that represented what they did, in favor of the long-term brand they thought they could create over time. Onions have nothing to do with the site. No clue why they picked it, but I'm sure it's a popular site cause it has crazy stuff that makes people laugh.

[Shorts]

Actually, The Onion has been around for quite awhile (1988) but it is still a great name.

Personally I like to have interesting\unique domain names that are easy to remember and two or less words. However, also a big fan of domain hacks. Which puts me at 50+ domain names...

Latest buy was the domain hack: physi.cz thought that one worked pretty well. At the end of the day though, it all comes down to content and frequently updated content. My personal blog really only gets traffic when it's updated... unfortunately work gets in the way of that...