Choice of format for URL.

dots, hyphens, commas, underscores, spaces....

[g1smd]

I have long dispensed the advice to use dots or hyphens in URLs, and to always avoid using underscores or spaces.

With dots or hyphens (commas too), the words are treated as being separate words, and remain clear to read. I prefer dots over hyphens any day.

With underscores they disappear in underlined links and Google does not treat two_words as actually being two separate words.

Spaces get turned into %20 and that always makes the URL%20totally%20unreadable.

However this time I find myself needing to have a URL that includes the words "News and Media" within, and I cannot decide what to use:

news.and.media.html
news.&.media
news&media.html
news.media.html

or something else. It needs to be kept short - nearly all of the other page URLs are one word.

What would you do, and why?

[edited by: trillianjedi at 11:08 am (utc) on Sep. 14, 2005]
[edit reason] Fixing typo per OP's request [/edit]

[txbakers]

I like newsandmedia rather than all the others.

Dots are no good for file names, and the ampersand can wreak havoc looking like a parameter.

[g1smd]

Personally, I avoid URLs with the wordsruntogether.

Why are dots no good for filenames? They work the same as hyphens as far as I am aware.

The & is never a problem just as long as the HTML source code uses & instead.

[g1smd]

Any more?.....

[MovingOnUp]

How about one of these?

news.html
media.html

[texasville]

don't know why you don't like hyphens, especially in this case. seems perfect. By the way- leaving blank spaces will create havoc on linux servers. don't notice problems in windows because of the 20% deal- but linux can't process them correctly.