Domain in Hebrew - with or without hyphen

On 22.11.2022, the Israel Internet Association invited the public to register domains with the Israel extension. It happened before many years ago but the suffix stayed in English For example: Domain address - whatever.co.il.

This time, with the option to register the entire domain in full Hebrew, the network is literally on fire. So far, in just a few days, thousands of domains have been captured and the race to get the perfect domain is still at its peak.

Many of my clients approached me with an unresolved interest, should I register a domain with a middle dash or give it up? This is a fundamental matter and I called on the flag to make order.

Domain with hyphen or without?

So, first of all, we will illustrate the question through an example - let's say you are engaged in the field of removing glasses and you have the following two options:

Intuitive? Common sense chooses the second choice with the hyphen but in a world where we depend on bots constantly scanning the web we are forced to put on algorithmic glasses and answer the question through the lines of search engine code.

John Miller in charge of tools for webmasters at Google put it this way:

“I don't think anything in our algorithms looks specifically for hyphens in domain names”

And in Hebrew: “I don't think anything in our algorithms looks for hyphens in domain names.”

Over the years, we have learned that if two domains are identical but one of them has a hyphen, the domain without the hyphen will take precedence In the promotion of the organicAt the same time, it is important for me to reserve this statement and make it clear that choosing a domain name is a very important action, but it is still one of many factors that influence the organic promotion of the site. A site that is successful in terms of the domain name but neglects the other factors will find itself somewhere on the internal pages of search engines.

Main reasons for using a hyphenated domain:

A domain name without a hyphen is necessarily shorter.
Much has been said and written about the effectiveness of a long domain, there is no doubt that a shorter domain beyond being catchy is also more correct in terms of SEO.

Google has already stated: Kort domene a a.

So it is true that in terms of length it will be about whether to add or subtract only one character but still, even one character can change the image and there is no doubt that avoiding the hyphen contributes to a shorter domain.

Read the domain by Google

Let me reassure those who fear that Google will not know how to read their domain correctly. The best minds in the world have created clever algorithms that know how to disassemble the domain and figure out alone where the word ends and where it begins. Google doesn't really need our help to figure out how to read the domain and the consideration of “I want to help Google” is completely unnecessary.
However, pay attention to the following domain: expertsexchange.com, there is indeed a double meaning here and it is important to make sure when choosing a domain that it is not readable in both ways.

The strength of the foot?

So that's it. Apparently it is. People are used to a hyphen-less domain. The historical data has made its mark and most domains are hyphenated. People have already got used to it and it is desirable that we are not the ones who try to break their habit. I will add and say that to me a domain with a hyphen looks cheaper while a domain without a hyphen will often look prestigious. In general, hyphens make a domain name look stickier and add a touch of spam to it. Do not forget that at the end we seek to give our surfers the feeling that it is safe to browse our site.

Difficulties in marketing the domain

Imagine a phone call with a customer that you are asking to put on your website or even a radio or television advertisement in which you or the announcer say the following words: “Visit us at Removing the Measure of Glasses Dot Israel.” Only to me does that sound bad? If you are reading here on the site you probably already have some basic understanding of the field but it is important that we get into the minds of our customers who do not necessarily “understand the language” and unfortunately not everyone understands the meaning of hyphen, some will get confused and choose a hyphen and here we have lost more surfers...

Let's summarize the topic of the domain in Hebrew

My recommendation is to choose a domain without a hyphen. At the same time, if the domain name with the hyphen is free, it is advisable to add a few more shekels and also purchase it and not even use it, and this is to prevent competitors and bad people from harming you on the site and the brand name.