Directory and file names?

[nfinland]

Hi,

A basic question - What namings do you prefer for your directories and file names if you would like to have your keywords in them? Is there any difference for the SEs?

www.mysite.com/blue-cars/blue-cars.htm
OR
www.mysite.com/blue_cars/blue_cars.htm

[rcjordan]

mysite.com/bluecars

[nfinland]

Can SEs read that as blue cars?

[troels nybo nielsen]

Well, they might if they built the sufficient linguistic analysis into their algos. But I doubt that they consider filenames to be very important.

rc's suggestion is short. And it is what many visitors would try first if they were to type the URL manually.

[sun818]

Definitely dashes. Related thread: hyphen or underscore? [webmasterworld.com]
key comments by GoogleGuy, WebGuerilla

I've been thinking about the URL keywords vs URL lengths. If you look at WebmasterWorld's organization, the file names are organized by record ID in the database. Short and sweet. Its not <http://www.webmasterworld.com/keyword-discussion/directory-and-file-names.htm>. The other benefit I see with short URLs is that they will not break in e-mails. Perhaps striking a balance between stuffing keywords and short URLs are is in order. :)