Do spaces (%20) in filenames help or hurt SEO?

[erikcw]

Hi All,

I just started working on a site for a client, and there are several dozen pages with file names such as "tropical flower.html" and "gardening tips.html". Will these spaces (which get filled with %20 in the address bar) hurt search engine rankings or spiderability? Should "-" be used in place of "[space]"?

This questions is coming soley from an SEO perspective. I know end users don't really like the %20 mumbo jumbo...

Thanks....

[agerhart]

I don't think that the %20 will have a negative effect, but using "-" for spacing is the ideal alternative.

[pageoneresults]

I know end users don't really like the %20 mumbo jumbo.

Then I would recommend that you don't do it. It is bad practice from a usability standpoint.

[Illah]

I would recommend you replace all spaces with underscores '_'. They are the code equivalent of a space, even moreso than a dash '-'.

Plus spaces in filenames aren't the best for the web. Depending on what you do it can make URL's 3x as big as they need to be.

--Illah

[bcolflesh]

I would recommend you replace all spaces with underscores '_'. They are the code equivalent of a space, even moreso than a dash '-'.

Reverse that recommendation:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[agerhart]

Illah, you are incorrect.

Let's say the pagename is "widget-widget2.html"
- the page will get a boost for "widget"
- the page will get a boost for "widget2"
- the page will get a boost for "widget widget2"

BUT,

Let's say the pagename is "widget_widget2.html"
- the page will get a boost for "widget"
- the page will get a boost for "widget2"
- But the page will NOT get a boost for "widget widget2"

[justgowithit]

There was a time when all of my URLs were "example_widget_etc"

Once I learned better (beat myself up about it) and switched everything (including static files) to "example-widget-etc" my SERP were boosted quite a bit for 2,3,4,etc., word search strings

[moishe]

Absolutely DO NOT USE '_', I recently drove myself nuts searching the SE's for my several 3 KW phrases never finding them, till one day, just for fun, I searched for KW1_KW2_KW3 and low and behold I was #1 all over the place....

Unfortunately, no one searches for KW1_KW2_KW3 they search for KW1 KW2 KW3.

I have since switched to a combination of jamming KW1KW2KW3 and KW1-KW2-KW3 and am starting to see my combo move up across the SE's.

Now if I could just recover my toolbar visable PR for those pages I'd start to be happy again.

Treat underscores like ex-wives.....ruuuuuunnnnn away!

[HughMungus]

I don't know about SEO but in my pages where this occurred I replaced " " with "-". If you need the " " in your page (e.g., for category names) just replace them at the top of the page before any processing begins.