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
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
The best would be:
sitepoint.com/better-or-same
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.
I'm going to start gradually chaning my sites to use '-' using .htaccess redirect for old links...
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.
Yes, a hyphen is best ("-")
Hyphens look so spammy though.
I wonder why large sites don't use them.
I think you answered your own question.
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.
personally I think google should start penalizing for using exessibe hyphens, they''re so annoying when people abuse them in urls
I like hyphens in URLs, it makes it easier to read.
penalizing is just so much more fun though chris, aslong as it's not my site!Originally posted by Chris
No need to penalize, just ignore.
You should be more worried about the content and not the url. What is easier to type?I like hyphens in URLs, it makes it easier to read.
phptoxml.html
php_to_xml.html
that is a small example too, it gets ridiculous when the article or page names are really long
Who would go directly to a page like that?
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