What's better for SEO in URLs: key-words-here.php or keywordshere.php?

Hi, this question has probably been asked a lot, but I couldn't find a thread like this with a search. If I want to optimize my URLs, what's better:

example.com/something-here/another-thing-here.html

OR

example.com/somethinghere/anotherthinghere.html

In other words, do search engines like putting words together or separating them with hyphens?

Or, I forgot to add, maybe better with underscores?

Thanks.

 

it's better to separete them, because then search engines will pickup your keywords better.
I have seen -, . and _ in this technique. I don't think it will make much of a difference whichever you use

 

The best way is to use keyword-here.php

I've heard at couple places that "-" is better than "_" too. However, I have no idea why and how...

Cheers,
Nima

 

here's the answer as to why this - is better than _

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

 

I have found some older threads about hyphens, so read this and this

 

i always prefer my-keyword-here rather than mykeyword here, just be careful when placing a long-list-of-spam-keywords-in-here-like-this

 

To me they seem to work the same way, and i find hyphens and underscores annoying.

 

For users - yes, it's annoying and usually easy forgetable to put all "_" or "-", but it's said that SE (I mean G) treat words with "-" as separate word, so to have keywords in your domain name you should use hyphens.
Think what is more profitable to you, because kw in domain name is not the main thing in SEO, so probably it is better to create easy memorized and spelled domain name (if you will need to spell it via phone or tell it to someone there always misunderstandings and mistakes with hyphens) that the one for SEs

 

Thanks a lot for the replies, guys. When I made this thread, I did it without the intention of including the domain names I already have a domain name I want to use, and it has no hyphens. My question is just on how the subdirectories and pages should look like. It seems that more people are inclined to say that hyphens are indeed better. I wonder if there's any real trusted source that points us in the right direction?

 

Is Matt Cutts blog trusted enough source? he says hyphens are better

 

better than underscores. That's not comparable to hyphens/no hyphens or underscores/no underscores

 

yep, really
but I think it really doesn't matter in subdirectories

 

In order to pharse the words easier, I recommend you to use "-" or "_" signs, and the mattcutts article told you why.

All best wishes

 

i go with the one with hyphen

 

The first one is better because hyphens are considered spaces in which SEs can read it as multiple words.