Basic question about best text for SEO website content...

Hi there,

This is a bit of a basic question but I have been wondering the answer for quite a while...normally when I see a website page it will be named something like "this-is-a-website-page.html" and I was wondering, do the dashes (-) in between each word help with SEO?
At the moment my website titles don't use the dashes between the words, mine are simply "thisisawebsitepage.html". Would I be more likely to get better SEO if I use the dashes? This goes for website file names, and image file names etc.

Thanks for any help.
Matt

 

No one able to help?

All I want to know is which filename is better (and preferably why)...

thisismyfilename.html

or

this-is-my-file-name.html


Thanks for any help, reps will be given.
Matt

 

Hi Matt,

What I did was look at sites with top SERP and copied what they did. Mostly I found hyphens.

Rich

 

Use hypens as they are seen as spaces between words by the likes of Google. Also it looks more friendlier for your visitors.

 

Although I am unsure about how effective it is.. the standard accepted route is to use Hypens over straight spelling or underscores (this_page.html)

 

Thanks everyone, reps have been left

Matt

 

I would suggest the hyphen format if there are many words

 

IMO, using dash or underscore is the same. There was a discussion about this: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4523.

As to the original question, using dash/underscore will enhance the readability and that can be perceive as a sign of quality, which is something SE & human fond of. For hints, see what people from google use in their URL:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/back-from-foo-camp/

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/06/revamping-webmaster-tools-help-center.html

Hope that helps.

 

Uhhh.. that's from 2005? Last year Ol Matt mentioned that Google prefers the Hyphens...

Just for the record.

 

I my opinion it's better to make page names with dashes like: page-name.htm .

and page titles with spaces "page name" .

The page-name.htm isn't the same as pagename.htm.

 

Aah, that is correct. Matt did mentioned it somewhere. I think in general, underscore & hyphen got the same score if the targeted keyword is web, page or 'web page'. Out of curiosity, I just do a search in G and underscore has no problem getting ranked for those keyword.

But in overall, I agree with you, just use hyphen if you can.

 

He mentioned it on the below post. Although dated 2005 I would be sure his suggestion still stands.

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

 

I am a big fan of underscore. Makes the url look nice and clear.

All my links have the product ID and name

http:// www. herbalade. com/4804_ShapeWorks_Advanced. html

hope this helps

 

All you can do except underscores.

 

-'s are way better because google sees thisismypage.html as one word and this-is-my-page.html as 4 words.

 

I've got another question...
Say I had a page name called "thisismypage.html" and since finding out about the importance of dashes between words in the file name, have changed it to "this-is-my-page.html". The old filename had a page rank of 2. By creating the newer file and deleting the old one, will I lose my page rank rating?

Thanks for any help.
Matt

 

YES... it is basically a NEW page to the SEs. In the future you should always do a 301 redirect to ensure the love is passed from the old page to the new one.

 

Setup a 301 Redirect from the old file name to the new one.

*edit*

Bah - David posted at the same time.

 

Great minds think alike ( and fools seldom differ) - we'll go with the former.

 

Thanks for this, never done a 301 Redirect before...how do I know if my server is running on Unix or Windows?