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View Full Version : Would an underscore improve SEO?



iKwak
03-09-2004, 12:56 AM
For SEO, would an underscore improve the Google SEO, lessen or not make a difference as non-underscore?


sitepoint.com/betterorsame

or

sitepoint.com/better_or_same

incka
03-09-2004, 01:11 AM
The best would be:

sitepoint.com/better-or-same

chromate
03-09-2004, 04:38 AM
sitepoint.com/betterorsame would be absolutely no good at all. I *think* google are recognising underscores as deviders now. But i'm not certain, so you're better off doing as Incka says to be safe.

incka
03-09-2004, 05:46 AM
I'm going to start gradually chaning my sites to use '-' using .htaccess redirect for old links...

Chris
03-09-2004, 07:22 AM
I don't think its worth it to change existing sites. Just make sure new sites use the format.

Justin Sampson
03-21-2004, 03:26 PM
So to sum it up a dash ("-"), is the best to use?

I always thought that an underscore ("_") was best, and I noticed this is what Chris seems to use on most of his sites.

I just want to be sure before I go ahead and code my site. :)

chromate
03-21-2004, 05:24 PM
Yes, a hyphen is best ("-")

Nick
03-21-2004, 06:08 PM
Hyphens look so spammy though.

I wonder why large sites don't use them.

michael_gersitz
03-21-2004, 06:56 PM
I think you answered your own question.

chromate
03-21-2004, 06:58 PM
Large sites don't use them because most of the time they aren't that clued up on SEO techniques. They probably also have systems developed which prohibit the use of hyphens in URLs.

I don't think hyphens look spammy at all. For example:

sitepoint.com/better_or_same or sitepoint.com/better-or-same

They look the same. But the latter is a safer bet with regard to SEO. It may look spammy to you, because you understand the techniques a spammer (is that a word? :)) will use. To the average person though, the URL is probably mostly ignored. All they care about are the links.

To be honest, I don't think hyphens look spammy at all. Particularly as part of the URL. Unless of course someone is using, like, 6 hyphens for 1 file name or something. I would always limit a domain name to 1 or at the most 2 hyphens. But for the rest of the URL I think it's clearer to use hyphens anyway.

dethfire
03-23-2004, 12:03 PM
personally I think google should start penalizing for using exessibe hyphens, they''re so annoying when people abuse them in urls

Chris
03-23-2004, 12:24 PM
No need to penalize, just ignore.

incka
03-23-2004, 12:28 PM
I like hyphens in URLs, it makes it easier to read.

dethfire
03-23-2004, 12:56 PM
Originally posted by Chris
No need to penalize, just ignore.

penalizing is just so much more fun though chris, aslong as it's not my site! :)


I like hyphens in URLs, it makes it easier to read.

You should be more worried about the content and not the url. What is easier to type?

phptoxml.html

php_to_xml.html

that is a small example too, it gets ridiculous when the article or page names are really long

incka
03-23-2004, 01:14 PM
Who would go directly to a page like that?

sitepointRefugee
03-24-2004, 03:44 AM
Who would go directly to a page like that?
Not me. Personally, I think both hyphen and underscore are helpful. But I also think that the technique can be abused.

that is a small example too, it gets ridiculous when the article or page names are really long
Some file names have 10 words in it, and it is too long even if it describes what the file(page) is about. Like title tags, I think it should be within a certain limit; it is not recommended to create too long a title and the same should apply to file/page name although, as of today, I've never heard or read that search engines will ignore or penalize too long file/page names. Personally, the length should be 3 or less, 4 at most. Longer than that, I'm not quite sure if it's really helpful to users.

Chris
03-24-2004, 08:05 AM
In filenames I usually wont use more than 2 hyphens, and I try to stick to just one.

For instance this url:

http://www.websitepublisher.net/article/aws-php/

Best.Flash
03-24-2004, 02:52 PM
Unless I've missed a meeting isn't the point of keyword-optimised-file-names keeping them short so someone can use the full path as the anchor text? -aside from that their no use for SE ranking purposes?