When someone develops..

[julian]

a similar domain that you have in your portfolio will it reduce its long term sale potential?

e.g. If someones develops solarpanel/org/uk or solar-panel/co/uk and gets it nicely established in serps a few years earlier with nice site etc, I might think twice about buying solarpanel/co/uk for obvious reasons - especially given that names such as these are most probably going to be purchased for advantage/use via serps..

 

[Blossom]

It depends.

If I see solar-panel/co/uk ranking highly in the SERPs with reasonably few backlinks, I'm more likely to try and buy solarpanel/org/uk because it looks like it would be quite easy to rank.

It's a warning sign if there are lots of very established, well-known companies with domains that aren't exact match high up the ranks because they will be far harder to shift.

 

[cc976a]

Actually this may present a better opportunity to go for solarpanels.co.uk - if being used for SERPs for affiliate PR lead gem (rather than a core commercial business)

As Blossom says, it could mean easier ranking opportunity, but like for like with general gaining of backlinks, media coverage (if possible), PR potential etc.... I would say the non-hyphenated works better each time.

If the hyphenated was a core business, you could rank and outdo it's site, and sell it to them

 

[Edwin]

Surely it adds value? It signposts how the right domain name can be developed and monetised, and assuming that "your" name is unarguably better than the developed name, you should have established companies queueing to take on the pretender by combining their industry knowledge, experience and expertise with your tip-top name.

 

[namealot]

It can put some off especially with ones that will promote a site in conjunction with more traditional forms of advertising? (Punters tend to forget if its plural , singular com co.uk etc) We have had the singular ‘plurals etc which there competition have, you approach and they say no? The ones we have asked why often state they don’t like to go head to head because it normally means having to drop the unit prices? (This is with more established companies in our experience)

But some companies trying to break a market steal the thunder, slow down; pinch competitions sales or just hit and run so too speak do like them.

So very dependant on the buyer? could be why “brand” is often preferred over generic