Using keywords in URL

Best way to do this?

[Andy217]

"Simple old fashioned seo from the ground up.
Use the keyword once in title, once in description tag, once in a heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic, once high on the page, and hit the density between 5 and 20% (don't fret about it)."

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So what's the best way to use your keyword once in the url?
For example, if I build a page on my website about "Baltimore Singles", how should I name it?

www.yadda-yadda.com/baltimore-singles.htm
www.yadda-yadda.com/baltimoresingles.htm
www.yadda-yadda.com/baltimore_singles.htm

Just curious. Thanks for any insight!

[Ove]

Hi Andy

I should have picked number 1

/Ove

[Mohamed_E]

"baltimore-singles" is parsed as the two words "baltimore" and "singles", so it will match either (or both). Presumably that is what you want to do.

"baltimoresingles" is a single word, which matches neither. It is like "therapist", which matches neither "the" nor "rapist".

Google seems to parse the underscore like a valid letter, so "baltimore_singles" is also a (different) single word.

[Ove]

But what about the search Singles in Baltimore in this case its better to separate it with hyphen.

/Ove

[aus_dave]

I have had equally good results in the past with hyphens and underscores, although now I use hyphens as standard.

'singles baltimore' will generate totally different SERPs to 'baltimore singles', so name the page in the most likely keyword order from searches.

[Mohamed_E]

I have had equally good results in the past with hyphens and underscores, although now I use hyphens as standard.

I suspect that this may be because keywords in filename give at best a rather small boost to ranking.

The proof that underscores are not word separators was given, long ago, by weguerilla. Do a search on allinurl:hotels location. You will see lots of sites with the words separated y periods or hyphens, none with underscores.

[Andy217]

Thanks for your thoughts and comments! I started to go with a hypen, but I wanted to check before I actually did it.

Thanks again! :)