SEO friendldy Site structure?
-
we are in the process or rewriting all the pages on one of our sites and will be changing some urls around. i was just wondering if dashes or underscores are better in the urls SEO wise?
www.site.com/word-word-word/ or
www.site.com/word_word_word/i personally like the underscores better but some colleagues tell me that dashes are better, any tests out there on this issue??
Thanks
-
I agree.... love the dashes only. Also a little bit of usability, dashes are easier to type (not that a lot of people are typing long urls with dashes or underscores, but dash is one key press and then underscore is 2 keys)
-
Everything you need to know in video form from Matt Cutt's himself
Recap: underscores combine the two words (apple_pie.htm = applepie) and dashes indicate a separator (apple-pie.htm = apple pie). So stick to dashes but it really doesn't affect seo.
-
I just corrected it after looking at your link, learnt something new... kudos to you!
-
Also, Marko is right. It doesn't matter for SEO, you won't get hit for using underscores vs. hyphens, but it is suggested to use dashes.
-
Hello 858,
Here's the short answer: dashes.
For the long answer, check this post out: http://www.seomoz.org/q/hyphens-vs-underscores
Hope this helps!
-
You should use dashes...
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
-
SEO + Structured Data for Metered Paywall
I have a site that will have 90% of the content behind a metered paywall. So all content is accessible in a metered way. All users who aren't logged in will have access to 3 articles (of any kind) in a 30 day period. If they try to access more in a 30 day period they will hit a paywall. I was reading this article here on how to handle structured data with Google for content behind a paywall: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/paywalls-seo-strategy/311359/However, the content is not ALWAYS behind a paywall, since it is metered. So if a new user comes to the site, they can see the article (regardless of what it is). Is there a different way to handle content that will be SOMETIMES behind a paywall bc of a metered strategy? Theoretically I want 100% of the content indexed and accessible in SERPs, it will just be accessible depending on the user's history (cookies) with the site. I hope that makes sense.
Technical SEO | | triveraseo0 -
Technical SEO - Where to begin?
Hi all, I'm looking to learn more about technical SEO. My background was digital marketing/PR where I learned the importance of links, of anchor text, of page speed, of improving UX signals, of SSL, utilising things like Google My Business etc. However, I find I am chasing my tail when it comes to things like understanding JS/CSS/log file analysis etc. I've tried reading so many articles on the subjects and I just find it so damn confusing. AnugalarJS/BackboneJS. Fetching & rendering, URL parameters...etc. I know from my own experiments that JS pages struggle to rank and I've created two very similar pages, one without JS, one with JS (which had far more links) and the non-JS page ranked far higher. So, I suppose I'm asking for some help with how to begin learning this stuff. I find the articles on Moz, Search Engine Land etc to be a bit confusing...maybe I'm not technically minded enough! Cheers, Rhys
Technical SEO | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
URL Structure
I'm going through the process of redesigning our website, and the URL structure was brought up. We currently have our URLs structured as domain.com/keyword. It seems that some people think setting your URLs up to look like: domain.com/directory/keyword makes more sense from a user's perspective, and from a search engine's perspective. With our directories labeled as services, solutions, clients - I see no value in adding directories as it dilutes the keyword and brings the keyword further away from the domain. Are there situations where adding a directory before the page in the URL makes sense? If anyone has data showing the difference between the two that'd be great! Thanks, Brian
Technical SEO | | PrasoonGoel0 -
Mobile SEO for mobile site
Hey there! I own a desktop website and just now finishe building a mobile site ( not a responsive design one) and I wish to start ranking my site on mobile serch result page. due to the automatic redirection from desktop website to the mobile site im confused: where should link to in order to SEO my mobile site? should i link to domin.com and assume the link juice is passing on? or should i link to m.domim.com?
Technical SEO | | logophone0 -
If you are organizing the site structure for an ecommerce site, how would you do it?
Should you use not use slashes and use all dashes or use just a few slashes and the rest with dashes? For example, domain.com/category/brand/product-color-etc OR domain.com/anythinghere-color-dimensions-etc Which structure would you rather go for and why?
Technical SEO | | Zookeeper0 -
My seo company has a footer link that links to my site by keyword will this effect my rankings
My old SEo company has a footer link by keyword to my site so it acts like a site wide link will this effect my rankings. My site was in the top 5 for many keywords now page 2 and 3 so I am trying to see what has effected it as we havent changed what we do
Technical SEO | | Casefun0 -
All in One SEO weirdness
For some reason, I'm getting extra words in my title tags. For example, I wrote "Washing Machine Widgets | Acme Widgets, Inc. | Acme Widgets Inc. Anyone have any idea why I'm getting the extra " | Acme Widgets Inc."? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | PGD20110