Underscores vs. dashes in URLs
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Uploaded by GoogleWebmasterHelp on Aug 5, 2011
Matt Cutts explains the difference between how Google interprets underscores and dashes in a URL.
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- 249 likes, 4 dislikes
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Top Comments
All Comments (34)
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what about capital letters?
How Google deals with "RedWidget" and "redwidget" or "REDwidget"?
cheers
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Well now it's time to change all my URIs
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underscores and dashed should be treated equally or else quality content may rank lower. you should fix it.
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Thaaaaanks Matt!
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Hi Matt,
Do you have the same updated opinion for new sites when it comes to the Title and pipes | vs. dashes - scenario? Albeit dashes would be the preferred/optimal preference?
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alright!!!
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well... ok
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Please Google, do not use _underscore as a separator, we have lost "define:" operator in searches and I still miss the time when I could search for strings in a back-trace and find relevant information that has helped find a solution..
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Hi Matt,
I agree for the urls but what about the domain names ?
Is that better with dash our without dash ?
Thanks ;)
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thanks every thing helps
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PLEASE UPVOTE
There is also a usability problem with having underscores in URLs. Since URLs are generally displayed with an underline, an underscore in the URL could potentially get "lost" in the user's eyes. Thus, that underscore may be perceived as a space.
This may be not be a problem if the user just needs to click on the URL (wherein the perception whether its an underscore or space doesn't matter), but it may be a problem in cases such as dictating the URL to a friend over a phone, etc.
sKIPper76M 6 months ago 7
@polyglut Yeah I agree. It's terrible when a company has a service and then tells us how to make best use of it. It's as bad as those help pages for all the software on my computer. How dare they tell me how to use it, now other people are going to be more productive than me because they are reading the same docs.
MrAshleySheridan 6 months ago 2