Comments on: SEO: Have a clear URL structure http://www.downtempo.net/blog/seo/have-a-clear-url-structure/ Product, development, and design musings from your friends at Downtempo Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:07:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Andy http://www.downtempo.net/blog/seo/have-a-clear-url-structure/comment-page-1/#comment-25 Andy Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:39:56 +0000 http://www.downtempo.net/blog/?p=14#comment-25 <p>Thanks for your feedback, Steve! I did a fair bit on research on this recently, and the official word from Matt Cutts at Google is that "Underscores are now word separators" (see this <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9748779-7.html" rel="nofollow">CNET article</a> from July 2007), and most comments at the end of this blog entry back up that statement. It seems that he never changed his old blog entry to reflect this fact.</p> <p>You can see proof of this in a travel blog entry i wrote on how to recharge a china mobile SIM card. Query for "<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=china+mobile+recharge" rel="nofollow">china mobile recharge</a>" and note that in the result titled "<a href="http://www.goneliving.com/china/how_to_use_a_china_mobile_recharge_card.html" rel="nofollow">how to use a china mobile recharge card (gone living)</a>" (currently the #1 result for this query), you'll see that the words "china mobile recharge" are highlighted in the URL, even though i'm using underscores between those words.</p> <p>Therefore it seems that dashes versus underscores in URLs is now an issue of style. I like the extra visual space between words that underscores provide, so i recommend using underscores as separators. You could just as easily use dashes if you prefer the way they look (they are also slightly easier to type than underscores), and it shouldn't affect SEO ranking either way.</p> <p>I'm going to adjust the blog entry to mention that users can use either underscores or dashes without a significant impact on SEO.</p> Thanks for your feedback, Steve! I did a fair bit on research on this recently, and the official word from Matt Cutts at Google is that “Underscores are now word separators” (see this CNET article from July 2007), and most comments at the end of this blog entry back up that statement. It seems that he never changed his old blog entry to reflect this fact.

You can see proof of this in a travel blog entry i wrote on how to recharge a china mobile SIM card. Query for “china mobile recharge” and note that in the result titled “how to use a china mobile recharge card (gone living)” (currently the #1 result for this query), you’ll see that the words “china mobile recharge” are highlighted in the URL, even though i’m using underscores between those words.

Therefore it seems that dashes versus underscores in URLs is now an issue of style. I like the extra visual space between words that underscores provide, so i recommend using underscores as separators. You could just as easily use dashes if you prefer the way they look (they are also slightly easier to type than underscores), and it shouldn’t affect SEO ranking either way.

I’m going to adjust the blog entry to mention that users can use either underscores or dashes without a significant impact on SEO.

]]> By: Steve http://www.downtempo.net/blog/seo/have-a-clear-url-structure/comment-page-1/#comment-23 Steve Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:51:33 +0000 http://www.downtempo.net/blog/?p=14#comment-23 I'm not sure about your underscore recommendation... The rest of it is solid, but I'm pretty sure the engines treat underscores as underscores (characters in their own right), rather than as white space due to their historic use in programming languages. If you want engines to treat it as white space, use a hyphen. So, if you're optimizing for "andy_volk", then the url should read '/andy_volk/", however, if you're optimizing for "andy volk", the URL should be "/andy-volk/". Actually, here's a reference on it... http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/ cheers, Steve I’m not sure about your underscore recommendation… The rest of it is solid, but I’m pretty sure the engines treat underscores as underscores (characters in their own right), rather than as white space due to their historic use in programming languages. If you want engines to treat it as white space, use a hyphen.

So, if you’re optimizing for “andy_volk”, then the url should read ‘/andy_volk/”, however, if you’re optimizing for “andy volk”, the URL should be “/andy-volk/”.

Actually, here’s a reference on it… http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

cheers,
Steve

]]>