Search engine frienly URLs.

when re-writing urls to be Search engine friendly, what is better to use to replace space or other symbols? "-" or "_" ?

 

Spaces are replaces by '%20', (and that's not good). You should replace them with '-' or '_'.

FFMG

 

yes, i know that but my question was: Is "-" better than "_" ? or it doesn't matter ?

 

"-" is considered as a word separator by the search engines, therefore, it is more URL friendly

 

"-" is better than "_", as KC_TAN says...

Cryo.

 

thanks. i was thinking the same

also i just found this: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

 

So when i submit to directies, my anchor text should be Mass-Effect-News instead of Mass Effect News? Just making sure

 

Always - and never _

 

Sorry I didn't read your post properly.
'-' is better than '_' but I don’t think they matter as much.

FFMG

 

it seems that search engines thread the urls like this:
www.mywebsite.com/the-url/ is seen as 'the url'
www.mywebsite.com/the_url/ is seen as 'theurl'
so it is better to user dashes ( - ) than underscores ( _ )

 

In anchor text you should use spaces. The hyphens are for URLs.

 

Although it doesnt really matter much, its alwayz better to use a more universally used hyphen. I would use "_". because its not considered as a junk character by SEs'.

 

All the major search engines will index on keywords in urls separated by hyphens. Only Yahoo and occasionally MSN index on keywords in urls separated by an underscore. Use a hyphen!

- Michael

 

I suggest to use "-" instead of "_".

 

I'm for the "-", lol it looks like there is a lot of smileys on that thread

 

I am also suggesting to use "-" instead of "_".

 

In response to all of the talk about "-" over "_", I have a question...

My site is about 7 months old and I currently use the "_" and not the "-" in many of my urls. How important is is that I change over and is it worth it in terms of SEO??

 

From what I've gathered, using "-" or "_" doesn't make much difference. However, it seems the conventional wisdom is to use the former. I don't recall why though.

 

Use "-" instead of "_".

It is fairly well documented that the dash represents a space and the under represents another character.

If you don't believe it, look up a popular term via Google and see what sites tend to be listed first. Sites with dashes or underscores in the URL.

 

yes as most of us will agree - Use hyphen rather than underscore.

ex; http://mydomain.com/html-help-file.htm rather than
http://mydomain.com/html_help_file.htm