Hyphens or underscore in URLS?

Hi Guys,

I have a question that is bugging the life out of me my collegue says:


"the use of ‘-‘ and ‘_’ for URL strings and online documentation both work equally well with the search engine spiders (This has been confirmed by the Top SEO gurus). I suggest that the use of ‘-‘ is primarily for URL stings for the site and that the use of ‘_’ is for documentation for the sites online PR purposes for consistent traffic reporting."

I think it is hyphens all the way especially for SEO right????

Your thoughts would be much apreciated!!

 

I don't understand what you're trying to say about underscores.

 

Definitely hyphens. The underscore has not been confirmed by SEO gurus, in fact Google has said that they will eventually start reading it as a word separator, but they do not yet. Stick with hyphens. If in doubt, look at how blogs automatically generate search engine friendly urls - always with hyphens.

 

Thanks very much - That what I thought!!!

 

You're welcome!

 

I agree with WebGeek182, that use of hyphen is better than underscore for SEO purpose.

 

I'm using hyphens on all my sites and doing pretty well. Never tried with underscore, as it is harder to type for the user, and is invisible in case you have text-decoration: underline; for the anchors

 

Here are two examples in support of the use of hyphens:

• The Link Building Cookbook
• New-Window Links in a Standards-Compliant World

At the risk of hijacking the thread: What about the use of hyphens or underscores in compound keywords (keyword phrases)? Is it better to use e.g. "search-engine-optimisation" or "search_engine_optimisation"?

 

Hey,

I really appreciate your responses...Thx

 

As far as SEO goes, it hardly makes any difference, google ranks sites without any hiphens like search-engine-optimisation and searchengineoptimisation is ranked in equal terms, google algo has the capability to distinguish both, my 2 cents

 

Cheers for your two cents, cashisfilthitakecheck!

 

If I'm to choose, I will use hyphens. It's been one of the standard SEO techniques. I am sure it may not be a huge factor, but better is always better

 

I’d strongly suggest choosing hyphens instead of underscores. Both of them are being indexed, but not both of them are SE friendly.
e.g. keyword1_keyword2 can in most cases be found when someone searches for “keyword1 keyword2” (of course without the quotes), and not always be found when searching for “keyword2 keyword 1”, compared to keyword1-keyword2, it is found in both orders, thus “keyword2 keyword1”.

 

And I think this is why underscores started to get some popularity. I have read on several occassions to use hyphens over underscores, but is has yet to be a very valid argument.

I am not changing my underscoe pages but have switched to hyphens for all new pages.

I create automated menus for my pages and have simply added to swap out a space for both hyphens and underscores.

Take care all..