We recently had an internal debate about whether the anti-hyphen bias extends to the rest of the url. We haven't tested it though. I'd be curious if anyone has ...
Thanks for the link! Very helpful. However, my own searching suggests Google treats /something-about-something/ similar to /somethingaboutsomething/. So it isn't a perfect example. If the same content is on both url's, would one always win?
Our own debate was whether to hyphenate a two word phrase in the directory structure: /kitchensink/whatever/ vs /kitchen-sink/whatever/. So we had to do a similar debate as the domain hyphen analysis. Spam signal/Google treatment vs. User Convenience vs. Does it really matter.
The suspected reasons to why there's an anti-hyphen bias (primarily, fakers trying to capitalized on well-known non-hyphenated names) don't seem to apply for the rest of the url. i.e. a legit brand has no control over what a spammer does with an impostor domain, but the legit brand has complete control over what their own url structure looks like
Good point as to domain credibility. But I have to admit that I groan whenever I see a legit brand with a url that is: .com/our-red-widgets-are-perfect-for-your-classic-1957-red-chevy/
The sheer number of people doing it makes me wonder if at some point they'll implement it, if they haven't already.
http://example.com/something-about-something ?
Matt Cutts actually recommends using hyphens in this case:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/