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Hyphens or Underscores for directory names?

Hyphens or Underscores for directory names?

Postby kanaloa » Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:55 pm

Curious as to your opinion on this too. Since PRO will be moving to a new SEO friendly system soon... which is best?

domain.com/my_page_title

OR

domain.com/my-page-title

? What's your thoughts?
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Postby c0ldfyr3 » Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:04 am

Matt Cutts wrote:With underscores, Google
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Postby Nativedude » Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:09 am

I personally think dashes look better, and from what an Andrew just posted looks like they are better for Google searches too
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Postby kanaloa » Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:35 am

That seems to be what I'm reading too. Thanks guys.

Makes me wonder why the heck Expression Engine was using underscores by default. Now I have a ton of links to correct.
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Postby kanaloa » Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:36 am

You know, then again, I guess it depends on the way you want the item found.

For example.

If I want visitors searching for "Haleakala National Park" I might want to do this: haleakala-national_park

That way I get them if they use just "haleakala" and if they include the "national park" on the end.
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Postby kanaloa » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:43 am

Maybe it doesn't matter at all anymore. Look at the top results for either... it's mixed:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe ... tnG=Search

Some uses the hyphen with good results and others the underscore.

UPDATE
Well dang... underscores do seem to work better. I've been testing it on "Akaka Falls"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe ... tnG=Search

It recognizes them in the akaka_falls format, but not if you search for "akaka_falls" or "akaka-falls"

I guess Google got smarter since 2006. ;)

Ultimately the point is that most users will not use quotes, the hyphen, or a underscore when they search. And if what i'm testing is right... the underscore in a url returns the most accurate results.
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