Use of + in url good or bad?

[MaartenvandenBos]

Hi,

I am working on a SEO project for a client.
Some of the urls have a + between the keyword.
like www.example.com/make+me+happy/

Is this good or bad for seo?
Or is it maybe better to use - ?

Thanks!

[costume]

Our site uses the "+" and is has never hurt our rankings - we've held many #1 positions in Google.  If I had to start the site all over again I'd use the dash instead but if you have pages that have been around for a while I wouldn't worry about it.

[MaartenvandenBos]

Thanks! All great answers, really helpful!

[junioruf]

I agree with everyone here, go with "-". Take a day and rewrite all of your urls that are not using "-". Any other symbol usage can be problematic.

[Mulith]

Yup better to use "-".

The + sign along with the & and % operands can be problematic for spiders and in some cases browsers too.

[SL_SEM]

I would get those re-written to dashes for a few different reasons:

1. Dashes are known as the best way to separate terms in URLS
2. IMO dashes are easier to read by the user, and easier to remember thus more user friendly (just my opinion though no data behind this)
3. Plus signs are often used in URL encoding or in query strings, both of which are not great for users, and both of which have been thought of in the past to look somewhat "off putting" to search engines compared to dashes.

So while it might be a pain I would say go to dashes.

[USHoleInOne]

Use "-" instead of "+"

Here is an article I always have bookmarked for URL Structure, even though it is from 2006, it is a good source of info from Rand.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls