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Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Junior Talker
Posts: 2
Name: SG Boise
Location: GamePacks.org
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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.
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Super Moderator
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Location: Blackpool. UK
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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/
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Chris. ->> Links are advertising NOT optimising!! <<- Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? Code Samples | People Counting System |
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Ultra Talker
Latest Blog Post:
Confessions and Reflections of a [Former] ... Posts: 433
Name: Tamar Weinberg
Location: New York
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It doesn't really matter. On a related note, I just blogged about this yesterday.
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Super Moderator
![]() Posts: 10,628
Location: Blackpool. UK
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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
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Chris. ->> Links are advertising NOT optimising!! <<- Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares? Code Samples | People Counting System Last edited by chrishirst : 05-07-2008 at 04:56 PM. Reason: crap grammar |
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Post Impressionist
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Latest Blog Post:
Welcome to Van SEO Design Posts: 8,063
Name: Steven Bradley
Location: Boulder, Colorado
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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.
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO | |
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Ultra Talker
Latest Blog Post:
Confessions and Reflections of a [Former] ... Posts: 433
Name: Tamar Weinberg
Location: New York
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Quote:
![]() I really haven't picked a preference, but WordPress uses dashes so that's typically the default for me.
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Half Man, Half Amazing
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North Lake Union Posts: 2,917
Name: Forrest Croce
Location: Seattle, WA
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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. |
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO | |
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Post Impressionist
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Latest Blog Post:
Welcome to Van SEO Design Posts: 8,063
Name: Steven Bradley
Location: Boulder, Colorado
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Quote:
Supposedly the seo issue is either gone or going to go away, but I'll stick with dashes anyway.
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l Search Engine Friendly Web Design | Van SEO Design l Tips On Marketing, SEO, Design, and Development | TheVanBlog l Custom WordPress Themes |
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Skilled Talker
Latest Blog Post:
It's hard to find a great place to sleep Posts: 72
Name: Steve
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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..
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Ultra Talker
Posts: 344
Name: Lawrence
Location: www.seono1.co.za
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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 ![]()
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How To Make A Website | Free Beginner Search Engine Optimization Tutorials | How To Create A Website Last edited by chrishirst : 05-09-2008 at 10:59 AM. |
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Super Talker
Posts: 131
Name: ayhan
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when omitting a search term, dont we use dahses?
jackson jackson -janet |
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Ultra Talker
Latest Blog Post:
Confessions and Reflections of a [Former] ... Posts: 433
Name: Tamar Weinberg
Location: New York
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Yes, if typed separately. But that has nothing to do with the question.
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Re: Dashes vs Underscore for SEO |
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Ultra Talker
Latest Blog Post:
Do you appreciate your wedding guests? Posts: 397
Name: Chetan
Location: India
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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.
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