Hyphen OR Underscore

I'm thinking about rebuilding the category structure of my directory.
Which do you think is better,hyphen or underscore,[SIZE=-1]from a SEO perspective?

I'm seeing some directories are using hyphens.
http://www.directorydump.com/
http://ask-dir.com/
http://www.ewebpages.org/
[/SIZE]

 

Hyphen (Dash) is better

I would write a real longwinded explanation but there isn't a need to overcomplicate things

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

Now watch a million people reply to this thread repeating exactly what I said....drumroll please

 

Thanks much for the comment!

lol
Are there one million members here on dp?

 

Some people will forgot they already replied around page 10 only to reply again on page 14 and page 19

 

It’s not by chance, owners know exactly what they are doing

 

<drumroll>hypens are best</drumroll>

 

Here's how I roll:

Urls:
try to make it always hit a directory, not a page
/shopping/cart/ vs. /shopping/cart.aspx - Hyphens or underscore between words - personally, I like Underscores, but... (actually, I just read Matt Cutts post, he has a valid reason, and he's a valid source... my mind has been changed - hyphens it is.)

CSS ClassNames:
lowerCase Camel Case - webDirectoryList

CSS ID Names:
UpperCase Camel Case - WebDirectoryList
(by differentiating between the two, it's easy to spot and remember if your element is an ID or Class)

Images:
Defintely Underscores: header_splash.gif, web_directory_list_logo.jpg, etc...

That's my standards anyways... take it for what you will

 

What about just running the words together? For example, bluewidgets.com.

Is that worse SEO than blue-widgets.com? Or are they effectively the same?

 

Well,it's a phrase but not a single word,I think blue-widgets.com is better.

 

No they are not the same. Search engines are not indexing the individual concatenated words at the moment although they may in the future. See Keywords in urls and the follow up.

- Michael

 

ohhhh what richie... forgot mine????

1. Biz-King.com
2. Biz-Giant.com
3. Alpha-Directory.com
4. Omega-Directory.com

Actually i think it

1. looks better
2. easy to read
3. can compete with any domain

Its the only way to go.... if ya ask me

thx
malcolm

 

If Google recognizes each single word, you don't need hyphen to help them out.

hyphe is better than underscore in SEO perspectives. But overuse of it is not good either

 

sorry for not giving you a backlink,mate...

I've changed the structure on Lively Directory ...I too added some cool MODs(actually most of them were added by an0n)...currently i'm having some problems with the MOD's coz I just moved to a new server...
Will invite you to submit when I'm done.

 

Not the same.

blue-widgets is seen as separate words blue and widgets

bluewidgets is seen as bluewidgets only.

Use a hyphen

 

If you didn't make a backup of everything, let me know and i'll reinstall everything for you. (and kill you later )

 

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9748779-7.html

Does that mean they are the same now?

 

Thanks for the info!

I used both underscore and hyphen.

 

Good find Richie. I think so. Seems like underscores are now word separators like hyphens

 

wldn't you lose all your indexed pages and PR?

 

I would say one thing Google has some difficulties in indexing pages and it is not

the best one according to me!

Here is the example it is indexing some non-existent pages in my directory

see below and putting it in supplemental result!

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=3852282#post3852282


But hypen is always better than underscore and I do not know whether because of it non-existent pages are being indexed!