optimizing url for google, which way is best?

/blue+widget/ or /blue_widget/ or /blue-widget/?

[leifwessman]

does it matter to google? it seems to me as if [domain.com...] is the most natural way of naming.

Leif

[John_Creed]

blue-widget

URL's with the "+" signs are pretty rare. Also a user has to hold their shift button to use it.

Many peoples seem to think that blue_widget would only be counted as 1 word from google, even though it's clearly two. So to stay on the safe side, I changed ten of my new pages from an underscore to a dash.

[leifwessman]

URL's with the "+" signs are pretty rare. Also a user has to hold their shift button to use it.

I have a dynamic website, and it's really easy to urlencode the name of each product and use it in the url. the user never writes these urls manually.

[John_Creed]

A dynamic website is the exception. They always have those kooky URL's. I have the same thing on my site.

A "+" should be fine. I assume google counts it as two words.(However dont quote me on this)

However, I still say a dash is the most effective way. It's tried, tested, and confirmed to not cause any problems and be effective with google.

[atadams]

Go with the dash.

[Chris_D]

Dash is king beacause it means 'space'. A space means "%20" and is against the 'browser rules'.

GG said "I would go with hyphens, personally"

[webmasterworld.com...]

But hey - do your own research - draw your own conclusions.

best
Chris_D

PS that probably should be Chris-D but I registered at WebmasterWorld BEFORE I read GG's post!

[bunltd]

Definitely go with the dash. I've noticed that Google treats it like a space when searching. It's easier to type, and see in linked text, too.

LisaB

[Imaster]

I hope Google starts treating underscores as spaces. I have mentioned this before, and am mentioning it again.

GoogleGuy, please start treating underscores as spaces. There are so many good sites out there with underscores in their URL's.

[leifwessman]

Has anyone ever tried to compile a character list with which characters that should be replaced by which?

' ' => '-'
'ö' => 'oe'

etc?

Leif

[leifwessman]

After testing and searching a little bit, I've so far come up with this list:

" "=>"-"
"é"=>"e"
"á"=>"a"
"ñ"=>"n"
"ó"=>"o"
"í"=>"i"
"ü"=>"u"

but I really miss a complete list of characters, anyone? :)

[rfgdxm1]

>GoogleGuy, please start treating underscores as spaces. There are so many good sites out there with underscores in their URL's.

Why encourage clueless webmasters? An underscore looks like a space when the browser underlines URLs.

[nakulgoyal]

A dash always seems to be more effective then a %20 (turning out from a space). Underscore is also quite visible on the web sometimes but "+" is something I don't even remember to have seen in the long past!

:-)

[netnerd]

I have several sites at number one for keywords using dashes.

Go for the dash to be sure.