Hi, My web page URL contain underscore(_) symbol. does it create any problem in crawling of web page. As I am trying to make crawl by google. I have tried some another URL without underscore(_) symbol and I have shared this url at facebook, twitter, redit, stumbleupon and some another social media website. Those url are indexed by google with in a hour. Can anyone suggest me if there is any effect of underscore symbol. Thank You
You will not have a problem if you use underscore. But if you want to have a little extra on crawling and keywords use the "-" symbol. WHY? Because Google identifies the "_" symbol as part of a program code or flagging. But the "-" char means connection. So if it possible, try to use the "-" instead of "_" symbols, but it does not make a lot of difference, only a slight one, but at a great competition these edges can give you benefit. By the way it is not a problem or error to use "_" chars. Cheers,
I do not think google differentiates between the characters based on its style. It can be a number, letter or even hyphens... but they would be crawled for sure. It is just for the ease of visitors that one avoids using such characters in the name! Regards, RightMan
Above ones already said "no problem" and some said "go for dash (-) instead", I am agreed with that. I just want to add a little thing. You should be careful with these ones whether it is underline or dash, overusing could lead your website having a minor trouble from Google perspective, especially in "trust". I am saying this based on my own experiences and no documents proved it. If anyone have an object please do not hesitate to correct me.
There is a very important rule to know and remember. Google treats " _ " as though it does not exist at all. Goggle treats "-" as a space. my_keywords_are_in_my_url.html is therefore seen/read/treated as mykeywordsareinmyurl.html my-keywords-are-in-my-url.html is therefore seen/read/treated as my keywords are in my url.html Google is good at being able to pick keywords out of a URL like mykeywordsareinmyurl.html but it is not perfect. Your chances are *slightly* better when keywords are cleanly separated where they should be, rather than where Google guesses they should be. (e.g., mykey wordsare inm yurl.html) But more than 3 dashes in a URL is a signal that the page may be spam. So use dashes sparingly.
Well for better result in Search engine prefer "-" in place of "_" . Directory structure of a site also plays important role in Ranking any keyword. For more information about google ranking and secrets of google visit http://seo-secret-blog.blogspot.com