SEO: Hyphen Or Underscore?

Posted by brant : 2007-08-02 at 10:04 pm

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is basically fancy words for getting good results in search engines. Anyone who has built their own website to be optimized by google has heard of the hyphen or underscore preference.

SEO experts would recommend that a URL contained hyphens rather than underscores. The reason for this is that google looked at hyphen's in a URL as seperate words, whereas underscored would be one word.

For example, a URL with /nicole_richie/ would look as "nicole_richie" to google, whereas /nicole-richie/ would look as "nicole richie". But is this true?

Well, its FINALLY official that this simply is not the case. Both hyphens and underscores are seen as seperate words to google, yahoo, ask, and MSN. I had just read this earlier today and had to make a post about it.

So the next time someone tries to tell you to use hyphens rather than underscores, tell them they are full of shit. :)


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OLD Comments (11)


Mike - 2009-10-21 at 13:41:46
Hmm. Totally contradicting what Google's own Matt Cutts is saying: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

I think that pages that rank even though their url contains underscores are ranking due to factors besides the url, whereas pages that have hyphenated urls are being aided by the url.

Try these searches:
hyphen vs underscore - 2,060,000 results
hyphen-vs-underscore - 783,000 results
hyphen_vs_underscore - no results

laptop reviews - 43,200,000 results
laptop-reviews - 43,200,000 results
laptop_reviews - 4,640 results

home mortgage - 27,500,000 results
home-mortgage - 29,900,000 results
home_mortgage - 62,800 results

morefree - 2009-08-10 at 05:03:20
Interesting post... but we should have a look at below links, then we can realized why we should "-" instead of "_" http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/seo-news/hyphen-or-underscore.php

pankaj - 2009-07-30 at 06:21:53
it is realistic answer. I use hypen because unnder score count a single word in programming. Google algo is developed in some programming language. so hypen provide more keyword rich page.

Ben - 2009-06-18 at 17:34:34
WRONG.

Google_Test - 2009-06-08 at 07:46:02
I just did some Test with Google:
I searched for "sony samsung pioner".

First Result:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/157660/1080p_hdtvs_from_sony_samsung_and_pioneer.html

Second Result:
http://www.highdefforum.com/flat-panel-tvs/50058-sony-samsung-pioneer-plasma.html

I will stick with Underscores, but I came to the conclusion that there about equal.

web design leeds - 2009-06-01 at 07:00:46
i always use hyphen

Web Design Leeds - 2009-03-30 at 05:23:55
I have been using underscores for years and have recently been told hyphens are the way forward, so I Googled it. Going to try a few pages with hyphens anyway. One good thing is that you can get more variety when naming images e.g my_image_name.gif my-image-name.gif could be hand getting up on Google images.

D

Internet Marketing strate - 2009-02-28 at 02:06:53
Great Post, just came here using Google.

Nick - 2008-11-26 at 09:47:06
I still prefer to use hyphens because they are easier for the user to type (underscores require the use of the shift key).

Vishal - 2008-09-28 at 15:36:00
Oh thats a news to me. I was giving consideration to revamp my site url structures.

currently i'm using underscores wherever possible:
http://theypi.net
example
http://theypi.net/categorized_videos.php
should be changed to
http://theypi.net/categorized-videos.php

But i will hold back for the time being and do some thorough research on the same!

seo updates - 2008-04-03 at 12:33:43
Excellent post..