Underscore vs dash ( _ vs -)

Does it make a difference in URLs?

I've had people telling me for over a year that dashes are better, but I've got no proof.

 

is hard to prove cos it will always make little difference, but I too read on more than 1 article that dashes are better, again I belive the difference is minimal..

 

Underscores are harder to read (and miss out) when URLs are underlined.

Using dashes is simply for human readability -- the search engines can easily differentiate between the URL on screen and what the site content is all about.

 

See Dashes vs. underscores by Matt Cutts. Its an old post but will give you an idea on why to use the dash.

 

u can also use double dashed build-reciprocal-links

 

Matt Cutts (head of Google's Webspam team) has a post about this here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

Dashes (-) are a more reliable replacement for spaces than underscores (_) for both search engine and and human use.

 

I've read http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/ and I still don't see any proof.

If you search for any term at all I see more _ 's then -'s in the urls, and in a lot of cases I'm still seeing non-seo friendly URLs which is making me believe that it doesn't even really matter if you're a big site.

I would have to say with longtails, if the url contains the kw you're pretty much set regardless of - or _

 

Agree 100%
http://fakesite.com/dont_click_me.html looks like there is spaces in the domain which could cause problems. Like if the user was looking for it later and decided to type it in they would be sent to:
http://fakesite.com/dont click me.html and it wouldn't send them to the information needed.

 

50% of the time the user would type the url into a SE search bar anyway hahaha

I think it's hilarious how many people still type their urls into the search bar instead of the address bar lol

 

I always wondered the same thing, thanks for posting this question.

Someone mentioned it's a visual thing, I think that's true. You can't see underscores.

 

Wikipedia uses underscores, and it doesn't seem to harm them one bit.

That said, I prefer the dash myself simply because they are easier to type (no need to use the Shift button).

 

dash(hyphen) is better because it based on English grammar

 

dash is better than underscores, you can easy read dash. Underscores are sometime difficult to read.

 

I suggest you don't use underscores. Dash is much better.

 

Matt Cutts said dashes are better than underscores.

 

personally im using dash. i try to avoid underscore

 

My site "DJ-MC.com" has been the PROOF that a Dash is better.

first of all, it separates the words so the spider-crawler-bots can read 'em

secondly, you can see the dash more clearly when the link is underlined:

for example: dj-mc vs dj_mc

thirdly, the dash LOOKS better than an underscore. To me, it looks like they "Ran out of names" and were forced to use an underscore (like in those free Hotmail type services). You look less creative.

For those three reasons, and because my site is #1 in Google (and also #8) for the primary key words (Sacramento DJs).

 

i heard that search engines do not like the underscore... i have a nerd friend who is an IT manager and he told me this. I don't think it is true. isn't the underscore treated the same as a dash? strange!

 

Yeah, I've decided for these reasons it's worth it to make the programmers change all the _ 's to -'s

 

I think that in itself is a good reason.

I decided to side with hyphens when I noticed Blogger was using them.