Google should consider "_" as Separators in Filenames and URLs

Let's come together and request GoogleGuy to consider underscores as spaces

[Imaster]

Hi,

Keywords in filenames is one of the factors in Google's ranking technology, which is great b'coz this has definitely helped improve relevancy.

Google considers hyphens in filenames as spaces, and then uses the keywords in its ranking analysis. But from this discussion [http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/12102.htm], the consensus is that Google does not consider underscores in the URLs as separators, as opposed to hyphens which are considered as spaces. I know there are a lot of very good sites out there who have underscores in their filenames.

The result being, a site having filename "keyword1-keyword2" gets a URL advantage, whereas sites who have "keyword1_keyword2" filenames do not get that advantage (even though those files have good focussed content for those keywords) .

There are so many respected and authorative sites out there who are using underscores in their URL's, and I just though we all could come together and ask GoogleGuy to consider this. Please post here if you feel that this is a good idea.

Internet Master

[ciml]

I wonder how long there will be a URL advantage for. It wouldn't surprise me if things go the other way, and hyphens no longer separate words in URLs (and even link text).

[jomaxx]

It would be a big help to me, so I vote yes. :)

Anyway it clearly is always used as a separator, except with respect to certain specialized variable names (HTTP_REFERER, that sort of thing).

[JayC]

The result being, a site having filename "keyword1-keyword2" gets a URL advantage, whereas sites who have "keyword1_keyword2" filenames do not get that advantage (even though those files have good focussed content for those keywords) .

I don't know -- seems like that's the better approach. It'd leave a choice, in designing or optimizing a site, as to how you'd want it handled. Give me more control and I'm generally happier.

[Dolemite]

I wouldn't mind if google did this, but I think part of the strategy behind them not doing it is simply that its unintuitive.

I have an email address with an underscore in it, and I've had several instances of people not knowing how to type it. After realizing they could copy/paste (probably learning how to do that first) or just click in some cases, I'd get emails like "what's that funny space thing?" Now, keep in mind these aren't exactly your power users, but from a lowest common denominator perspective, underscore just isn't in the repertoire.

Meanwhile dash is reasonably familiar.

[AthlonInside]

File name and domain name has nothing to do with your Google ranking.

This is my experience. And many will agree with me. So as many won't. You are just wasting your time to optimize your URL.

[jomaxx]

Not a waste of time. Even if the domain name itself is of little importance, many people will link to a page using the URL as the anchor text. Having a recognizable keyword in the URL must be of some benefit in these cases.

[Cyclob]

File name and domain name has nothing to do with your Google ranking.

But I think it does.... If you just type search term in the search box, mostly the website in first or second position will have this search term (or keyword) in their URL. If it's not in the domain name then it will be in the file name.

So I think having keyword in the URL does have some impact on Google ranking in someway.

[RonPK]

Why not use dots as separators? Google indexes such filenames without any problem and sees the dot as a word separator.

red-widgets.tld/all.about.my.beautiful.red.widgets.html

[danny]

I agree. Underscores should be token separators. A possible exception is in program code, where underscores may be internal to variable names... but maybe Google could be smart enough to know when it was parsing a programming language where that was the case. In any event, program code is now a tiny fraction of Web content.

[shaadi]

>File name and domain name has nothing to do with your Google ranking.

I see lots of keyword rich domains still ruling the SERPs even with a PR0 :(

One of my competitor uses 25+ domains half of which are PR0 but still come up for the keywords - I have filed a spam report but nothing changed even my post was deleted from webmasterword :(