Underscore or Hypen which is better ?

I will make a quick follow-up post and point out quickly that this is incorrect, if you use quotes. That makes sure you're searching for word1 word2 and not word1 , word2. Try it. search for "digital_point_forums" and "digital-point-forums" - you'll get totally different results and if Google counted them both as spaces then presumably the same results would appear.

Again, I'm going to quote an August 2007 blog post from Matt Cutts:
"...he says some people thought that underscores are the same as dashes to Google now, and I didn’t quite say that..."

Ok, now I'll bow out , thanks.

 

If that piece i quoted is wrong, you will have to let Matt Cutts know.

Maybe you didn't understand my post, underscores in a "search query" caters for literal strings because regular web users won't or rarely lookup info connected by underscore which is why it displays different results. You see, Google was made by geeks for geeks and right from the beginning they catered heavily for programming code related searches.

They are catering to two types of user, the regular web user who will rarely if ever perform a search using underscored queries, and to the programmer where this function is important hence the two radically different set of results.

Understand?

If Google does NOT treat underscores in "URL's" as seperators, it MUST treat them as joined correct? Then why doesn't our URL digital_point_forums_free_webmaster.html return as a result when querying digitalpointforumsfreewebmaster

Also why is our digital_point_forums_free_webmaster.html URL showing bold in the SERP's indicating a match when querying "digital point forums free webmaster"?

Answer: Because Google is indeed seeing the underscored URL is seperate words.

 

No difference, links only make the difference

 

Man, I'm a sucker for good search discussions. I did your search for "digital point forums free webmaster" and this is what I got:
[/URL]

I don't have the URL bolded. Hm, let's try to eliminate any variables. I'm in Ohio, USA, using Google.com, Mac (OSX), Firefox, 12:18am ET.

 

Remove "" that's the variable.

This One

And if you want to use "" in the query for an exact match, of course you will need to seach using just that.. an exact match.

This one

 

I see your point and am not sure why digital point forums free webmaster is bolded without quotes. However, do you know why it is not bolded with quotes? If Google counts underscores as spaces, then it should be bolded.

Maybe it isn't as black and white as we are thinking. Maybe Google is not making some exceptions, but has not completely switched over to underscores being spaces.

 

This goes back to the underscores having importance in programming related searches and literal strings.

It's black and white providing you understand programming languages and SEO quite well, i'm not a brilliant coder by any means but i know enough to understand why.

For example,

Mod_rewrite - 8.99 Million results
Mod Rewrite - 1.68 Million results

Mod_Deflate - 735,000 results
Mod Deflate - 303,000 results

See how we get far more results with underscore now we are querying programming terms, where before we were inputting regular terms joined by underscores which a regular Google user won't do. That's why you can't really go by number of results with/without hyphen or underscore to determine if Google see's underscore seperated words.

The "digitalpointforumsfreewebmaster" example i used is more valid, and as you can see by that Google is 100% seeing underscored words as seperate words.

+Rep added for the discussion

 

Yes, I see what you mean by the programming terms, which is the reason underscores and hyphens used treated differently. I'm not a programmer and don't attempt to know anything about programming, but I'd say I know quite a bit about SEO. Something still isn't adding up in my head, but since it's 1am, I'm having troubles bringing it out. I could be wrong, but I don't know. Be sure to read search engine journal and make some comments on the post I wrote tonight regarding my views on underscores and hyphens. Should be posted tomorrow. Prove me wrong (I'd rather be wrong and learn, than think I'm right and be ignorant). Rep added as well.

 

Thats what its all about is learning, i started SEO with AltaVista then Yahoo not long after migrating over from the C64 and still learn.. and it will never stop.

Try checking with the same tests i done but use different sites and URLs. Wiki and Digg are good underscore examples, and you will see Google is definately detecting the individual words.

Look forward to the article and the comments from other SEW readers to hear their views. Feel free to use any of my text in it if you wish.

 

Underscores in domain names aren’t supported by all search engines. I found this out the hard way. Not only are they not recognized as following ARPANET suggested naming standards (see RFC 1034, 1035), but they may actually break your page if your site is accessed with certain patched versions of IE 5.x and 6.x. The culprit for this is MS vulnerability patch MS01-058.

It may just be safer to use hyphens.

 

as matt cutts mentioned before , Hypen ("-") is better for search engines

 

mod_rewrite is actually something which will hit rather than mod-rewrite aka it is the superior term of the two - so it is no wonder those rank better.

and just a note from the non native speaker: having no hyphen's is something english native speakers are used two, as well as removing the spaces. Germans for example do consider keyword-keyword to be much superior a combination over keywordkeyword because in German words like "poker game" are Pokergame (written in one) or if separated because of differnt parts of the word, would always be poker-game.

So every time I see somebody using an english site, they always go for the dashed domain name rather than without, and I have confirmed that with other languages as well.

Of course, underscore still will be much higher in results for a longer time even though Matt clearly stated that they are now kind of treated equal - but for a simple reason: those have been favoured in the past and gained more rank than the dashed ones and continue to have a head start.

 

I suggest that you use hyphen rather than underscore. Advisable number of keywords that are included in your domain name are 4 separated with hyphen. Domain names can generally be between 2 and 67 characters long (including the extension), and contain the characters a - z, 0-9 and '-' (hyphen). Domain names cannot start or end with '-' (hyphen). Domain names are not case sensitive and should generally be displayed in all lowercase.

 

I think hyphens are still the best solution for SEO. Many have been saying that search engines treat underscores the same as hyphens but I actually don't believe this 100%

 

I use hyphens and find them infinately preferable to underscores.
As sweetfunny rightly says, Google does now see them as word seperators, however to a human viewing a hyperlink that is underlined....they are invisible.

Keep it simple and as easy as possible for visitors is what I would recommend.

However this is personal preference.....

 

Not anymore trichnosis. Matt Cutts came out back in August and said that Google (which was the only major search engine not to use underscores as keyword delimiters at the time) would be implementing them. So now all four major search engines (which have a 99.99% stranglehold on the market when you think about it) do use underscores as keyword separators.

That's because mod_rewrite is the proper name for the function used to remap and rewrite URL strings. That example alone does not prove anything.

Another point for usability! (Which is another great reason to use the hyphen as a keyword delimiter, on top of possibly confusing people thinking that the underscore is really a space.)

I haven't seen that, usually they go for the non-dashed domain name since it's easier for people to pronounce in conversations (and remember). At least around here anyway.

Actually hypens had been favored by Google for a long time (for reasons that sweetfunny already explained). But I don't think it'll take long for the two to become practically indifferent as far as keyword delimiters go - search engines are pretty quick to pick things up.

So what you're saying is that keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4.com will be better? Sorry, I just don't buy it. Nobody would want to type that in unless they REALLy wanted to get to the site in question. You're just asking for someone to register a non hyphenated version of the domain name and just walk off with all your traffic if you do that.

It's true. Just ask Matt Cutts. For the longest time, Google was the ONLY major search engine to not use the underscore as a keyword delimiter. That changed back in August when Matt (who heads Google's anti-spam department last I checked) said that the underscore would now be accepted as a keyword separator. However, as I've pointed out multiple times in this thread, hyphens (or dashes, call it what you will and damn the consequences) are better for USABILITY. That alone should be reason enough to use them instead of underscores.

 

- is better IMO

 

The article/post has been posted on Search Engine Journal at:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-underscores-hyphens/6010/

Feel free to read, comment, and sphinn it!

 

Google treats hyphens as spaces. Google does not treat underscores as spaces.

Because of this, the string "search_engine" will not show up in a search for "search engine", but the string "search-engine" will show up in that search.

The end result is that hyphens are much better, from an SEO perspective, than underscores.

This rule seems to hold true for use in text, in file names, and in domain names.

 

Google treats hyphens as spaces. Google does not treat underscores as spaces.

Because of this, the string "search_engine" will not show up in a search for "search engine", but the string "search-engine" will show up in that search.

The end result is that hyphens are much better, from an SEO perspective, than underscores.

This rule seems to hold true for use in text, in file names, and in domain names.