SEO Tycoon

**sgboise** · 05-07-2008, 02:29 PM

Hello,

I always used underscore to replace the space in my links mainly because it's easier to read. Someone said that it's better for SEO if I used dashes instead of underscore.

I am just wondering which is better for seo.

**chrishirst** · 05-07-2008, 03:12 PM

neither really, but hyphens are treated as spaces and will separate the words. Whereas underscores will join the words into a single block.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

**tamar** · 05-07-2008, 04:32 PM

It doesn't really matter. On a related note, I just blogged about this yesterday.

**sandbox** · 05-07-2008, 05:35 PM

I read your blog Tamar and you seem to be saying that dashes are better than underscores "High Rankings discussion, dashes are the default delimiter" and chris is saying that underscores join words together so if you want to rank for blue widget would a search engine see blue-widget like this blue widget (two words) and an underscore blue_widget like this bluewidget (one long weird word)

Or am I missing something?

**chrishirst** · 05:56 PM

not quite,

blue_widget = blue_widget

but other than that, you have it right.

my usual demonstration search patterns for this are;

santa claus

santa-claus

santa_claus

and finally, to show that underscore are NOT parsed out of the concatenated word;

santaclaus

**vangogh** · 05-07-2008, 08:08 PM

Forgetting search engines for a moment I think dashes are much easier to read. Look at the first and third links Chris posted above and see if you can tell which uses the underscore and which doesn't.

It's pretty easy to recognize the dash, though.

The last I heard Google was claiming they were parsing the underscore (or going to) and treating them the same as dashes, but even if they are (or do) I'd still prefer dashes.

**tamar** · 05-07-2008, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Look at the first and third links Chris posted above and see if you can tell which uses the underscore and which doesn't.

Well, Chris used them with links in the example, so naturally it's a bit harder to distinguish

I really haven't picked a preference, but WordPress uses dashes so that's typically the default for me.

**ForrestCroce** · 05-07-2008, 10:03 PM

Cutts says dashes for what people ordinarily want to achieve.

A lot of people have a habit of naming variables something like m_realname ... there's also a lot of source code published around the web, usually embedded inside a <code> element, as part of a larger page. So if you want to do a search for code using m_ member variable prefixing, the only way that's possible - on the backend - is to leave underscores as part of the original text. They might store two copies, of course.

**francis84** · 05-08-2008, 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgboise

Hello,

I always used underscore to replace the space in my links mainly because it's easier to read. Someone said that it's better for SEO if I used dashes instead of underscore.

I am just wondering which is better for seo.

Mostly, we used hyphen to replace a space. Logical Reason: if you need to put hyphen, you just need to press hyphen key; unlike when you need to put underscore you need to press shift key + hyphen key.

**vangogh** · 05-08-2008, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tamar

Chris used them with links in the example, so naturally it's a bit harder to distinguish

That's why I specifically mentioned it. You just can't tell when it's part of a link. It's hard to see underscores in URLs too. Dashes are just easier to see and I think they're more people friendly.

Supposedly the seo issue is either gone or going to go away, but I'll stick with dashes anyway.

**Feydakin** · 05-09-2008, 12:53 AM

Dashes also make much more sense when trying to tell someone a url or asking them to remember it.. It's far easier to say love dash hina dot com to someone than to say love underline hina dot com or love underscore hina dot com.. Add to that the huge number of people that don't actually know what an underscore is and it gets worse..

**lajocar** · 11:59 AM

I have 4 dashes in two of my domains

Both are doing well organically in all the major search engines

I know it is difficult to remember, but I targetted this sites for oraganic search

**ahayiroglu** · 05-10-2008, 04:37 PM

when omitting a search term, dont we use dahses?
jackson
jackson -janet

**tamar** · 05-11-2008, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahayiroglu

when omitting a search term, dont we use dahses?
jackson
jackson -janet

Yes, if typed separately. But that has nothing to do with the question.

**sizzler_chetan** · 05-11-2008, 12:44 AM

I have never seen any drastic differences in using or removing the dashes in the domain name or any long URL.
They mean the same, but sometimes i feel that using dashes is better which separates the keywords for better visibility in search engines.

**Greham** · 05-15-2008, 05:21 AM

i think the dashes is better then the underscore.

**Dan Schulz** · 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

neither really, but hyphens are treated as spaces and will separate the words. Whereas underscores will join the words into a single block.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

That changed (a change which was long overdue) last year, Chris.

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13530_1-9748779-28.html

That being said, I still recommend the dash, if only for usability reasons (oh darn, was that a space or an underscore in that link? Oh well, I guess I'll find out soon enough... oh noes, what's this "404 - File Not Found" page? I guess the site is broken. Oh well. *goes off to another site*)

**chrishirst** · 05-19-2008, 03:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Schulz

That changed (a change which was long overdue) last year, Chris.

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13530_1-9748779-28.html

Well, it sounds nice, However, looking at the actual results ( post #5 ) 15million raw results with a dash against 56 thousand with a underscore, rather suggests that it hasn't happened as yet.

**bakerc** · 05-19-2008, 01:00 PM

SEO stuff aside,

From a user’s point of view following a link, wouldn't an underscore be easier to read. I'm not on about people copying links or passing a link address on - I mean for Joe Bloggs viewing your site, wouldn't an underscore make the word more reader friendly, make it look more like proper English (or whatever language)

IMHO…

Link_to_this

Looks better visually (is cleaner) than

link-to-this

**nyef** · 05-19-2008, 02:53 PM

Quote:

That changed (a change which was long overdue) last year, Chris.

That may be true for google, but google isn't the whole world. I'm sure there are plenty of other search engines and search-enabled directories that still don't treat underscores as spaces.