Is there any difference in using an underscore vs. a dash in the directory portion of the url?
-
A friend who is a software developer asked this question regarding the directory portion of the url: Is it better to use dashes or underscores? I know in the domain name Matt Cutts recommends dashes, but what about the directory extension?
-
As far as I know underscores are not seen as separators so that means two words with an underscore between will be tagged as one word.
My personal suggestion is to avoid underscores as much as possible. All separators are good beside underscores.
We work a lot with hyphens and the results are good.
Hope it helps !
-
Hyphens are always best! Good luck.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Missing trailing slash in URL on subpages resulting in Moz PA of 1
Even here in moz community I am noticing it. Is it really a factor to have an ending slash on the page? Does it make a difference? Our website has a homepage PA of 63, DA of 56 but all of our sub-pages are just 1 and they have been up for 4 months.
Web Design | | serverleap1 -
Anyone using CloudFlare on multiple sites?
We are considering using CloudFlare as a CDN for a large group of sites. The fees are $5 to $200 depending on many factors. We tried the free trial on one site and were impressed with the results. I am wondering if any of you have any longer term experience with this and performance metrics, etc.
Web Design | | RobertFisher1 -
Is it necessary to Remove 301 redirects from Wordpress after removing the 404 url from Google Webmaster?
There were many 404 urls in my site found by Google Webmaster. I've redirected these urls to the relevant urls with 301 redirect in wordpress. After that I removed these 404 urls from Google Index through Webmaster. "Should I cleanup these 301 redirects from Wordpress or not? ". Help Needed.
Web Design | | SangeetaC0 -
Creating Multiple Sub-Directories in Wordpress
Hi fellow Mozzers, I'm currently in the process of planning/building a website for e-commerce and have stumbled on a bit of a hurdle with sub-directories. I want to use a piece of software called SellerDeck to generate my e-commerce store and also my homepage (index.html). This element of the build is fine as the e-commerce store will sit in a sub-directory of .co.uk/store/. What I'm struggling with is the rest of the site architecture. I want to use Wordpress to manage content for the rest of the site. I want to have sub-directories .co.uk/help/ and .co.uk/blog/, all managed from one Wordpress installation. Is this possible? If not, does having two separate installations of Wordpress create any speed issues? Additional question for bonus points from me; lets say I wanted to do away with sub-directories for the /help/ and /blog/ elements (but keep the /store/), could I have a Wordpress installation that doesn't generate a homepage (index.php) so I can utilise the e-commerce software version instead. Essentially I'd be installing Wordpress at the root folder, but wouldn't have an index.php made by Wordpress. Many thanks in advance
Web Design | | BlueTree_Sean0 -
Infinite Scrolling & "Long Scrolling" same or different??
Can anyone please confirm for me the difference if any, between site design that incorporates Long Scrolling and Infinite Scroll? I was told (by an unnamed source) these were different designs and that "long scrolling" is better for SEO . However, in all my research I am unable to prove there is any difference between the two. I understand Infinite scroll may include Ajax, but does that mean Long Scrolling does not? If anyone has any references or can supply any further education here, I'd appreciate it! Thanks!
Web Design | | ACNINTERACTIVE0 -
Infinite Scrolling vs. Pagination on an eCommerce Site
My company is looking at replacing our ecommerce site's paginated browsing with a Javascript infinite scroll function for when customers view internal search results--and possibly when they browse product categories also. Because our internal linking structure isn't very robust, I'm concerned that removing the pagination will make it harder to get the individual product pages to rank in the SERPs. We have over 5,000 products, and most of them are internally linked to from the browsing results pages in the category structure: e.g. Blue Widgets, Widgets Under $250, etc. I'm not too worried about removing pagination from the internal search results pages, but I'm concerned that doing the same for these category pages will result in de-linking the thousands of product pages that show up later in the browsing results and therefore won't be crawlable as internal links by the Googlebot. Does anyone have any ideas on what to do here? I'm already arguing against the infinite scroll, but we're a fairly design-driven company and any ammunition or alternatives would really help. For example, would serving a different page to the Googlebot in this case be a dangerous form of cloaking? (If the only difference is the presence of the pagination links.) Or is there any way to make rel=next and rel=prev tags work with infinite scrolling?
Web Design | | DownPour0 -
Live Text in Navigation Vs. Image - Does this affect SEO
I recently was asked the question if having live text in the navigation vs and image affect seo. For example, refer to this link http://markup.io/v/avsaenq856kw the navigation highlighted is seperate images. The html elements read : ![](</span><strong style=)/images/procedures.png"> Live text html reads like this: Breast » What is better for seo value, or does it now matter having live text or an image?
Web Design | | Red_Spot_Interactive0 -
Entering different but related industry, keep it on the same domain or new domain?
We rank well across many online furniture keywords within google.ie here in Ireland, this is our core business and it is successful. Now we want to branch out into the related field of "kitchens". So the question is do we setup a new domain (a sister site) or keep it on the same domain with a new sub category. So the main categories off the home page would be: Sofas Bedroom Furniture Dining Furniture Kitchens I know all the benefits of keeping to the one domain (the domain has age, and already has DA of 30 with many landing pages with PA from 30 to 49), so for the short term SEO angle keep it on the same domain. But from a Branding perspective this is not a great approach. Is it better to have a dedicated domain/site for kitchens (and the bonus of having a keyword match in the domain)? We are always thinking longer term so we see this as a 3 year plan outwards rather than a get rich quick. There is an additional overhead of course with managment of the domain, templates SSL, PCI etc etc and we are conscious that a new domain is not a easy route to success. Looking at the top 10 for the main keywords within the "kitchen" keyword cloud most if not all are dedicated kitchen sites, or kitchens are the main business so their homepage is there kitchens landing page. The competition in the google.ie space have 20-30 DA and PAs roughly 30 being the highest DA, we are thinking that this has not a huge challenge to overcome? Thanks for any help, assistance or comments really appreciated. Ware regards, Eunan @ Love Furniture
Web Design | | eunaneunan0