Are dashes in a domain name considered to be spam by the search engines?
Is it best to use dashes when you have several words in a domain, or to just join the words together?

No, its not spam. Unless you have too many dashes, I tend to limit mine to 3 at most.
Any more than that and it looks spammy to human eyes, let alone the search engines.

Yes i agree, limit the dashes and its ok.
I hate domains with multiple dashes, you can just tell its a spam site.
It just looks bad.

so 3 dashes is acceptable?
4 too many?
Thats the general idea i get.

Not exactly. It really depends on the site and it's contents. As soon as you get respect from your members, they'll spread the word of your site.

Huh?
I thought we were talking about dashes in domains, not content of site.
Im confused.

I would do one dash at the most, no more then one dash because it's hard to remember. You want to have your domain as simple as possible.

I think dashes are easier to remember and easier on the eye.
That said, search engines might consider more than 2 or 3 dashes as spam.

woah i didnt expect such a big debate
Thanks everyone. I think i will use 2 dashes at most.

You need dashes most of the time as most domains are taken! It leaves little choice but to use dashes or unwanted words.
Oneday the domain bubble will burst and there will be NONE left at all.

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