hyphen or underscore?

[kekko24]

For the files, do i have to utilize the hyphen or the underscor?
key1-key2 or key1_key2?

Do you know any web page that is in first ten position with a really bad link popularity? (but just for the optimization?)

Thanks

[jeremy goodrich]

As to the first question, I've never seen any difference in how Google treats the two. Just a matter of preference, I guess.

People might remember better to type in the url if it had a hyphen since it is more-visable than the under_score, which you might not see because it's 'under' :)

Welcome to WebmasterWorld! There have been a lot of discussions about hyphen versus underscore in the past, you might also consult the site search [searchengineworld.com] to get more info.

[Mohamed_E]

Googleguy recommends hyphens, see [webmasterworld.com...] as well as WebGuerilla's comment in the same thread [webmasterworld.com...]

[nativenewyorker]

My personal experience with this is Google will treat blue_widget as one word vs. blue-widget as two words. blue_widget will only come up under a search for blue_widget while searching for blue or widget or blue widget will return the latter.

Ted

[kekko24]

thanks to all!

[bsand715]

Has anyone changed their files from underscore_ to hyphen-,and if so were the results negative,positive or neutral?

[gingerbreadman]

I've just started to make this change across a few of the sites that I look after.

I noticed some competitors using dashes as opposed to underscores to good effect in the SERPS. I'll let you know the results after the next update.

Ball ache to do...better be worth it.

[bsand715]

Will changing the file names effect the current cache sites in the search engines as far as searchability and hyperlinks?
In other words do you end up with broken links from non updated pages in some SE?

[edited by: bsand715 at 6:13 pm (utc) on Feb. 19, 2003]

[globay]

well I have recently replaced _ with ; in my urls, since Google sees word1_word2 as one word, and word1;word2 as two words. Now I am exited if it will work out!

[miles]

It is really a personal preferance. Give both a try and let us know what happens. I have used the underscore for over 2 years and have seen good results.

[Big_Balou]

bsand715, I finished changing over an entire site using underscores to dashes. I got the .htaccess right just in time for deepcrawling so I'll see the results soon enough.

The only thing I have noticed is that the PR for changed pages has dropped to a default level based on their location from root even using 301's.

Hopefully this is temporary. We'll see.

The thing that convinced me was trying to do a search on keyword1_keyword2 and then, using the same keywords, keyword1-keyword2.

[NFFC]

GG said to use the dash, not sure if he was being serious or not though!

[swerve]

How do hyphens and dashes compare with spaces (ie. keyword1%20keyword2)?

[bsand715]

<<The thing that convinced me was trying to do a search on keyword1_keyword2 and then, using the same keywords, keyword1-keyword2>>
Yea I have seen this also Big_Balou.

<< GG said to use the dash, not sure if he was being serious or not though!>>
Good question.

It seems I remember Brett,s advise was underscore at one time,can't find the post. I could be wrong.

Gingerbreadman is right << Ball ache to do...better be worth it>>

That is why I'm standing by for more info, have change a few but no conclusive results.

Still seems to be very mixed opinions from the board.

[jeremy goodrich]

Spaces aren't supposed to be in urls, :) as far as I know. Some browsers will choke on those, and many spiders will too.

Google seems to deal fine - but the other engines may not list you, just cause the bot can't get through.

And - consider this: if you see a site with a space in it, it stands out, looks different, etc.

Is that what you want your target (mark, customer, etc) to focus on when they see you in the SERP's?

Nope. You want them focused on your title & description - and thinking about how great it would be if they went to visit your site...

[Mohamed_E]

> Still seems to be very mixed opinions from the board.

It did seem an open question to me, until I read WebGuerilla's post [webmasterworld.com...]

To me it immediately seemed conclusive, and a quick check confirmed it on a page that I had just renamed, see [webmasterworld.com...]