SEO friendldy Site structure?

[858-SEO]

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

[NakulGoyal]

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)

[OlegKorneitchouk]

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.

[somes]

I just corrected it after looking at your link, learnt something new... kudos to you!

[GeorgeAndrews]

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.

[GeorgeAndrews]

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!

[somes]

You should use dashes...