Point 2 gets my listings on Google. For my company site I used www.citystaterealestate.com It's No1 on yahoo every search. Has nothing to do with URL it's in the HTML text for Title of page.

To prove it you can search Yahoo for Chester VA Real Estate and see my page twice in the top 6 with different URLs

There is much discussion about the way to do this.  If you go to the Google help site, it tells people to search by product or service first, then city, then state.  

Example:  Google itself says that searches should be made as "residential real estate city state".  But, all the "experts" in the books say to do it as "city state residential real estate."

So, you have an old generation like me used to putting the city and state first and a young generation being taught to do it the opposite.  Joke: Which market are you aiming at Young or Old?

Sorry, I didn't answer your question in my post above, but I have not heard that dashes make a difference.  Why would they?

Russell - I have Web CEO on my computer and can run SEO analysis for a page or an entire site. The very first result pertains to the URL. As an example, I put in my www.ShowcaseYourHome.com with a keyword search for Grayslake Real Estate and this was the beginning of the analysis (notice that hyphens or underscores ARE the way to go):

1. Optimization advice  

A. General page properties

Page URL

1. Your keyword isn't present in the URL! Our research of hundreds of search engines top-lists shows that keyword presence in the URL is crucial for achieving high rankings in a search engine's results list. By placing keywords in your domain name, you gain a serious advantage with search engines. If your URL points to an already established and high-ranked web page, we do not recommend altering it. However, this factor is worth considering when you create new pages / sites. Most major search engines favor websites with keywords in their URL; however, remember to use them sensibly and not to abuse them. When optimizing a page for a key phrase, separate keywords in the URL with a hyphen (domain/web-site.html) or an underscore (domain/web_site.html), but do not write them as one word. Otherwise, search engines will understand it as a single word (even if the search engine result highlights this keyword in bold), and your work on URL optimization will be wasted.

My AA site does extremely well due to the separation with hyphens. The domain is View-MLS-Homes.com and a search on Google for Grayslake MLS shows me as #1 with MLS highlighted in the result. This wouldn't have occured if it was ViewMLSHomes.com (I don't think the bold will show up in this post)

Grayslake IL Real Estate, Gurnee IL Real Estate, Lake County IL ...Specializing in Grayslake real estate, Gurnee, Arlington Heights, Buffalo Grove, Lake Villa, Lindenhurst, Round Lake, and all of Northern Lake County.

www.view-mls-homes.com/ - 86k - Cached - Similar pages

Russell -

citystaterealestate.com would work well -- if it's not already taken!

Agents avoid purchasing the URL's with hyphens because they feel it's an inconvenience to always have to be telling clients to be sure to add the hyphens (like buying a .net, .biz or .ws domain instaed of a .com URL). Yet, aren't we trying to be 'found' by the search engines? Therefore, build it with the search engines in mind because once you capture the viewer, you will probably be dealing with them via email on an automated listing update program totally devoid of the site they originally found you on.

Has anyone noticed their rating with Google drop drastically lately?  For my area, I was ALWAYS number one, two or three; now I am not even making page TWELVE!  This has happened over the past few days and my hits have dropped dramatically as well.

Can anyone help?

Have I been hijacked?!?!?!

I just purchased few domain names both with dashes and with out dashbes for the city. Its been only couple weeks, I have not got a chance to do meta tags for each one of them...Thanks for bring it up the subject!

Hello  to All, Russell  I would strongly suggest you stick with a domain name without the hyphens. Trust me, I know.  Trying to explain a hyphen, a dash, a minus sign to prospects is not worth your time.  Focus on your Title, Keywords, Meta Tag, and Content to rank.  I've had very good results.  To check where your website ranks for each of your keywords, please visit http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/

Or to get an idea view my website http://Alex-Cruz.com

Alejandro - If you are concentrating on search engine placement, which was Russell's question, use hyphens. It's just one more important item in the overall mix of SEO. It's like using alternate text with your graphics. Some engines still consider it and others don't, but every little bit counts. You can always have a generic URL to give them once you are working with them. I own my name URL which is what they see when I email them with listing information.

Here is another example of a Google 1st place position using hyphens:

(search for) cook county real estate

(1st position)

Cook County Real Estate - Chicago Suburb Real Estate - IllinoisCook County Real Estate offers Northern Illinois MLS search, tutorials, links & articles for Chicago suburb real estate.

www.cook-county-real-estate.net/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

If having keywords in a domain is so critical to SEO, why do sites with completely fabricated words for a domain name do so well?

What do the words "Trulia" or "Zillow" have to do with real estate?

What does "Amazon" have to do with books?

What is "About.com" about?

According to Alexa (hmm, what's an Alexa?) the eighth most visited site on the planet is Orkut.com.  Anyone want to hazzard a guess as to what exactly an Orkut is?

(It's a social networking site developed by a Turkish engineer working at Google. His first name is Orkut)

I understand the question, and it's a great one. I'm not saying keywords in domains don't count, I just don't think they are a major concern. I read an interesting debate on "hyphens or not" somewhere but I can't find it now. (I'll keep looking) If I recall, the general consensus was the search bots have an easier time parsing if there are hyphens, but they do a remarkable job with unhyphenated as well.

I do have to disagree a little with those saying it doesn't matter from a communication aspect. We give our URL to prospects ALL THE TIME over the phone, and it's far easier to give a URL verbally without the hyphens.

Which seem eaisers to tell someone over the phone:

"You can go to cook county real estate dot net"

Or

"You can go to cook dash county dash real dash estate dot net"

Say them both out loud like you're talking on the phone....

Believe me, I understand the importance of SEO. But non-search engine domain marketing is important too. If you are not giving out your domain name to potential prospects on the phone, you are missing out. Your domain name IS on your voice mail message, isn't it?

This wasn't the debate I referenced above, but it's got some interesting points on the subject. (some of the links to other articles on the right are good too...)

http://www.cyberindian.com/domain-registration/domain-names-hyphen.php

<<Has anyone noticed their rating with Google drop drastically lately?>>

Me too.  I went from a PR4 to a PR1 on one of my sites.  I give up.

Steve, and others:  Google is re-working their algorithm or scoring system.  Tweaking.  Dontya love it?

Jay, sites with made up names, like trulia, zillow, amazon, etc do well because ONE of the METRICS in the ALGORITHM is....

TRAFFIC

Another metric is inbound links.

consider those, and you see how domains with no keywords can rank well.

BUT - it really helps to have keywords in your domain.

And more than one dash, or two dashes at most, is probably not a great idea according to my sources.  The Search Engine Cops know that you came late to the party, had to use dashes, and just want to SPAM THE SPIDER.... So they can penalize you for it.  

Lonn - I understand that traffic and inbound links count. As do dozens of other on and off page factors. Including keywords in the domain name.

The point I was trying to make is having a keyword rich domain name is far from being mandatory or required, and that it's certainly possible to have a monster site without one. I wouldn't want a reader here to think, "All I need is the domain city-real-estate.com and my site will be wildly successful". Nothing could be further from the truth. Would it help? Sure. Would I like to have "PhoenixRealEstate.com"? Of course -- though I think it would do more for off-page marketing than it would for my SERPs.

Most experts feel that the SEs are placing less importance on keywords in domains as they understand it's getting harded to find availble domains with key words in them. I don't think anyone, search engines included, want to see domains like search-for-homes-in-the-Phoenix-area-using-the-Phoenix-MLS.com

If both forms of the name are available - buy both and forward the citystaterealestate to city-state-realestate.  Use the one without the hypen on your marketing material so clients have an easier time and build your site to get the rankings...you get the best of both worlds!

Donna:

You read my mind!  :)

Marcia

When I looked into setting up a site I got a bunch of books about SEO.  I have read that www.citystaterealestate.com is not going to help your results.  The reason being is that the search engine will look at "citystaterealestate" all as ONE word and when people search they type  in "city, state, real estate" which is considered separate.  Of course, I read about this after I picked my site name!  But it's not hurting either.  Because my site name is easy to remember and I've done other things to optimize my results. The main thing in SEO seems to be your meta title and tags.  Also, not having too many pictures on your home page and using your keywords many times throughout your page is helpful too.