Dashes vs. Underscores in a url

[jimr451]

Hi,

I have a client with thousands of ranked pages that have "_" (underscores) in the URL's rather than "-" dashes. I know that dashes are generally supposed to be used in place of spaces in the URL. So ideally these pages should be dashes rather than underscores to separate words. Example:

www.abc.com/How_to_bake_a_cake.html

should be:

www.abc.com/How-to-bake-a-cake.html

ideally. My question is, do you think it's worth the effort to make this change, or just leave the URL's alone? As I said, the URL's do rank pretty well, and the site gets lots of organic traffic to those pages. But we are trying to optimize and this issue came up. We could change them, and put in a rewrite rule to preserve the old links, but I'm leaning to just leave them as is.

Any thoughts?

-Jim

[patrickprecisione]

Hey Jim. I'm not sure, but I'd be really surprised if it would make a difference. Then again, there's some pretty wacky SEO rules out there, so who knows? I'm sure one of the more experience SEOs will be able to help.

[Harold Mansfield]

Hi,

I have a client with thousands of ranked pages that have "_" (underscores) in the URL's rather than "-" dashes. I know that dashes are generally supposed to be used in place of spaces in the URL. So ideally these pages should be dashes rather than underscores to separate words. Example:

www.abc.com/How_to_bake_a_cake.html (http://www.abc.com/How_to_bake_a_cake.html)

should be:

www.abc.com/How-to-bake-a-cake.html (http://www.abc.com/How-to-bake-a-cake.html)

ideally. My question is, do you think it's worth the effort to make this change, or just leave the URL's alone? As I said, the URL's do rank pretty well, and the site gets lots of organic traffic to those pages. But we are trying to optimize and this issue came up. We could change them, and put in a rewrite rule to preserve the old links, but I'm leaning to just leave them as is.

Any thoughts?

-Jim

100's of ranked pages probably signifies that they have been indexing content for a while. It's hard to look at one aspect of someone's success online, without considering all of the other things that they may have done over the years.

My opinion is that underscores are not better than dashes and it's a really insignificant change to make. The "prettier" you can make your URL's the better.
Common wisdom says that you don't mess with things that are working, and worry more about improving it's offsite promotion, than risking changing it's URL structure.

Google cares more about the content on the page, how it is organized and presented and how many links you have to it.
Underscores, and changing all of your pages to end in .html and all of that other stuff are old SEO wives tales that have gone around for years. Someone sees a site that is doing well, and all of thier URLs have a "/x/" in them, then all of a sudden they are convinced that the "/x/" is why their pages are ranking well.

There is definitely a method to the madness, but there aren't many "tricks" that actually carry any wieght.

[billbenson]

I have a dash (hyphen) in my url. I give my email out to people all the time. I also receive calls from people that have underscores. An extremely large number of people don't know what a hyphen is. In fact I have to explain dash, hyphen, underscore all the time what ever I use. I say "dash like a minus sign" all the time and they still don't get it. I would think underscores would be even worse.

[Harold Mansfield]

A lot of sites that have been up for a while have underscores in the page URL's. It also depends on how they were built and who built them.
Most CMS's use dashes.

[Brian Altenhofel]

Dashes are much easier to see for some, especially depending on what font someone is viewing. Some fonts the underscore is so thin that at smaller type sizes it looks like a space. It gets even worse sometimes when their software underlines links.

You'd be surprised how many people write down links from an email to go back to on a sticky note rather than click-and-bookmark.

[Business Attorney]

I read someplace that search engines used to interpret a hyphen as break in the text, but not an underscore. I don't know if that was ever true but it certainly does not seem to be the case today. I wouldn't change them for that many existing pages that are already indexed and ranked.

[LGCG]

I read someplace that search engines used to interpret a hyphen as break in the text, but not an underscore. I don't know if that was ever true but it certainly does not seem to be the case today. I would change them for that many existing pages that are already indexed and ranked.

That's interesting! I suppose in that instance it would make a difference.

[billbenson]

I read someplace that search engines used to interpret a hyphen as break in the text, but not an underscore. I don't know if that was ever true but it certainly does not seem to be the case today. I wouldn't change them for that many existing pages that are already indexed and ranked.

Those days are long gone. G is smart enough to seperate the words run together now. Hyphens did help years ago. I don't know about underscores in that era. It really doesn't matter today though.

[vangogh]

David that was true. For some reason they couldn't tell the underscore was a word separator. I don't think it's an issue any more though I can't say I've checked on it in a long time.

@jim - For new URL you should always go for dashes over underscores for a simple reason. Just look at the two links you created in your original post. You can't see the underscores in that version. They look like part of the underline on the link. It means anyone reading the url won't actually see the real URL. Dashes make it clear there's something there and it's not just a space.

However, if the current URLs are pulling good traffic, I'm not sure I would jump to change them all. First it's probably going to be a pain to change 1000s of pages. Second any change in URL is going to require setting up 301 redirection, though it probably wouldn't be difficult to set that up since you'd only be changing one character to another. Search engines would then need some time to sort out the changes. It's typical to lose traffic for a time until everything is sorted out before traffic comes back again. How much of a loss and how much time I couldn't say. A few years back I moved my site to it's current domain and changed every URL on the site. My traffic dropped for maybe 6 weeks. It's been awhile, but I think it dropped around 40%. Then it came back.

You never get it back exactly. Some links pointing to the existing URLs may never get associated with the new ones. That doesn't mean you shouldn't ever make the change, but I you want to have reasons for making the change. In my case I felt the new domain was better than the old one and while I was aware it might cost me in search traffic, I felt I'd gain more in time with a domain more in line with my business.

[Brian Altenhofel]

@vangogh:

sed and regular expressions are great for that. :)

I've never lost traffic with 301 redirects, even on a site with over 600K indexed pages.

[vangogh]

Yep. I was thinking of a regular expression in a redirect. Of course I also know just saying regular expressions is enough to scare some people away.

I haven't lost traffic either with redirection other than some temporary fall off while things are being sorted out. However some of that will depend on how well you've done some seo related things. I'm pretty sure not every link will ultimately point to the new url. A few lost links probably won't hurt much, but it could depend on how many others the page has. Also when urls change it's likely more changes are going on as well. Sometimes all those other changes contribute positively or negatively to search traffic after the switch.

You don't have to lose traffic after redirecting urls, but you do want to redirect things correctly and generally prepare for the move.

[jimr451]

Thanks for all the responses. We could do global replacements, and htaccess rewrites / redirects.

But, I do sort of fall in with the idea that Google, etc, are smarter now, and it doesn't make that much difference.

The traffic to the pages has always been pretty good, but it has fallen off quite a bit in the last 6 months (sort of a slow, steady decline), so we are looking at all possibilities.

Thanks - will probably leave them alone for now and follow some other ideas first.

-Jim

[Harold Mansfield]

...The traffic to the pages has always been pretty good, but it has fallen off quite a bit in the last 6 months (sort of a slow, steady decline), so we are looking at all possibilities.



There are a lot more probable reasons for that, than the URL structure.

More competition for page views
More recent information that's been published since
Still using old SEO rules on the pages (or even worse, bad SEO rules that used to be acceptable)
No new marketing or promotion of the content
Website may need some updating

Traffic doesn't just keep coming indefinitely. Sometimes you have to freshen things up to keep old readers interested, and you have to continue marketing and promotion so that new people keep discovering you.

A lot of times people will hit the ground running, see some success and then sit back hoping to coast on it forever. And then they do exactly what you are doing...start scratching their heads wondering why the old work that they did years ago, isn't still working.

The web don't work that way. Actually the world doesn't work that way.
Things change. You have to change with it.

[dianecoleen]

Very interesting topic. I bet the changing of urls will give you an additional time, for the redirection and changing of underscores to dashes. I think you just need to improve the promotion of the site. Give it a more appealing content or perhaps create promotion about your product/service, As what others have provided above this post.

We used to consider using hyphens instead of dashes in a url before. There were certain explanation that for some reason, dashes were used to indicate as a space in a url, so the url will be easily recognized by robots. Here's a link about that topic for your reference ;) Dashes vs. underscores (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/)

[carloborja]

Great article you've shared there dianecoleen!

"So if you have a url like word1_word2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 (which almost never happens). If you have a url like word1-word2, that page can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2"

That was from Matt Cutts himself. I think it may be worth going dashes all the way. But, I would only do it after I've exhausted all the other options like a fresh take on marketing and promotions like what the others have suggested.

[vangogh]

It was a great article back in 2005 when it was first published. I'm pretty sure Google has sorted out the dashes and underscores since then. I'd still prefer dashes when creating new URLs, though at this point it's mainly for the legibility of the URL itself.

Now having said that I thought I do a quick check. I searched Google first for web_design and then for web-design. The former mainly led to results with an underscore in the URL, the page title, or both, while the latter tended to show more dashes and space in URL and page title. There was definitely a clear difference in results.

When the query contained an underscore nearly all the results has an underscore between web and design. Out of 100 results I found 2 results with a dash and 2 with a space. When the query contained a dash I only found 4 results out of 100 that used an underscore between web and design.

I might have to take back what I said above about Google having figured out the difference. It doesn't seem like they treat dashes and underscores the same. Having said that I'm not sure if the underscore in the URL here is the result of lost traffic and whether or not it's worthwhile redirecting all the URLs to dashes at this point. A good test might be to pick a half dozen or so, redirect them to URLs with dashes and see what happens before deciding about the rest.

[Business Attorney]

Steve, I think the results of your test are interesting but I don't think you can necessarily conclude that just because a query containing an underscore or a dash turns up different results that Google also treats those variations different when a user submits a query containing neither punctuation. in other words, Google may assume that the punctuation has some significance to you when you specify it in your search but may not attribute any significance to it in other cases.

[Khalifa]

SEO wise, this won't make a difference. However, dashes are easier to see.

But I would never recommend a domain name with dashes.

[vangogh]

I don't think you can necessarily conclude that just because a query containing an underscore or a dash turns up different results that Google also treats those variations different when a user submits a query containing neither punctuation

True. I don't think what I said above was conclusive of anything. Just suggesting that Google doesn't treat dashes and underscores as the same thing. I tried another query for web design with spaces instead of either a dash or underscore and over 100 results counted 2 uses of web_design in urls and 17 of web-design. With the 2 underscore results both also used "web design" with a space in the page title. With the dashes all but 2 of the 17 results also used "web design" with a space in the title.

I also ran all 3 queries (space, dash, and underscore) again. The results when using a space and a dash are identical for the first 10 or so results. I didn't check beyond that. The results using an underscore are completely different. The only site that was still there was the Wikipedia, though not in the same position.

I think Google treats a dash and a space as essentially the same thing. There was speculation that they started treating underscores the same way, but I don't think they do and while my 3 queries are hardly scientific I think they back up the idea that dashes and underscores still aren't treated the same way, which is all I was really suggesting above.

Taking this back to the original question I feel safe saying that of the 3 spaces will be most used in queries and underscores the least. You tend not to see many underscore results unless you search using the underscore. However, I think how you use the words and punctuation in the page title will play a much larger role in how the page ranks than the URL and it shouldn't make a huge difference which you use in the URL. My original suggestion still stands that you're better off using dashes, mainly because they're more legible for real people, but if you've already used underscores across the site I doubt it's worth the effort to change them.

Again though it's easy enough to test. Take a few pages, and get a baseline measurement for where the pages rank and how much traffic they get. Change the URLs from underscores to dashes and set up the proper redirection. Watch and see what happens with the new URLs over a reasonable time. Once you see what changes, if any, there are you can decide if it's worth changing the other URLs or changing the few test pages back.

[Harold Mansfield]

There's an even more basic answer to this question. Your job is to make it as easy as possible for people to do business with you and find you on the web.
Normal people don't use underscores regularly. So don't use anything that people don't recognize easily or use.

I see people that use underscores in thier email addresses. Same thing. Doesn't matter that using an underscore was the only way to get the name you wanted...no one uses underscores so it just defeats the purpose of easy recall.

Doesn't matter what .2% benefit it may be for you in SEO. If it makes it harder for the average joe to remember or find on line, I'm not doing it. Google is the #2 person that I'm looking to please. Real people are #1.

[vangogh]

I completely agree for any new URLs being created. Here I think you have to weigh the benefit of dashes with any loss that will come from redirecting the current URLs. The redirection can be handled in a way to minimize any downside, but there probably will be some loss and naturally some time involved in setting up the redirection and checking to make sure it's working. My guess is the benefit of redirection will outweigh any negatives long term, but testing first with a few URLs makes the most sense to me.

[billbenson]

There's an even more basic answer to this question. Your job is to make it as easy as possible for people to do business with you and find you on the web.
Normal people don't use underscores regularly. So don't use anything that people don't recognize easily or use.

I see people that use underscores in thier email addresses. Same thing. Doesn't matter that using an underscore was the only way to get the name you wanted...no one uses underscores so it just defeats the purpose of easy recall.

Doesn't matter what .2% benefit it may be for you in SEO. If it makes it harder for the average joe to remember or find on line, I'm not doing it. Google is the #2 person that I'm looking to please. Real people are #1.

I get maybe 4 emails a month that has an underscore in the URL. People are confused by the word hyphen, dash, but really confused by underscore. I have emails with hyphens everyday.

I think the use of underscores are by company mandates. I had one from the navy today. Very few, but a few large companies 'I believe' put mandates in the format of an email.

You may find some in free email accounts i.e. Jim_smith@google. It may be better than jim.smith48985@google????

[vangogh]

I think it started as a programming thing. It's common to use underscores as spaces in variables and function names. The dash or hyphen is a symbol for subtraction so it doesn't work well to represent a space. The people who first created web pages and urls were likely people who were familiar with programming and so used underscores for spaces. Just guessing at that, but it seems logical.

[billbenson]

I think it started as a programming thing. It's common to use underscores as spaces in variables and function names. The dash or hyphen is a symbol for subtraction so it doesn't work well to represent a space. The people who first created web pages and urls were likely people who were familiar with programming and so used underscores for spaces. Just guessing at that, but it seems logical.

That makes sense to a degree.Could be the IT people assigning emails

[Harold Mansfield]

That's exactly where I see them most too. Just about anytime I work as a sub with programmers, they seem to all have email addresses with underscores in them, or the staging area's URL has an underscore (or multiple underscores) in it.

[billbenson]

That's exactly where I see them most too. Just about anytime I work as a sub with programmers, they seem to all have email addresses with underscores in them, or the staging area's URL has an underscore (or multiple underscores) in it.

In that case, you know who your client is...

[vangogh]

Even though it's a guess, I'm pretty sure it started with programmers. Non-programmers don't exactly use underscores all that often. Then again I just finished redeveloping a site for a non-programming client and there are underscores everywhere.