Hi Chris

If Google sees a link to the page it may still list it in its index even though when they got there they saw the noindex tag so they didn't crawl it.

The rational is they see a link from your main site with some anchor text and index the link based on the anchor text they can't crawl it because you say not to, but they still have some information about the page from your anchor text.

Here is a direct Matt Cutts Quote:

"Our highest duty has to be to our users, not to an individual webmaster. When a user does a navigational query and we don’t return the right link because of a NOINDEX tag, it hurts the user experience (plus it looks like a Google issue). If a webmaster really wants to be out of Google without even a single trace, they can use Google’s url removal tool."

REF: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-noindex-behavior/

You can block access to the test site (which is what we do) via htacess (if you're on a Linux Server) and use the Google Index Removal Tool to strip out the currently indexed pages.

I hope that helps.

A dash is considered a word separator. Similar topics can be found here in regards to dashes vs apostrophes, though this mostly references is in regards to a URL.

The problem you're up against is one that I've personally dealt with on my site o-ring vs o ring vs oring vs o'ring.

Do you use them all? Do you target just one? How does Google treat each one?

Well there is NO good answer I have seen. If you target more then one variant and they are treated as the same keyword then you maybe hit for spamming, but if you don't you may lose potential traffic / sales.

The only thing I can offer is more of a suggestion then anything. Go to Google and plug in the phrases in the keyword analysis tool found in the adwords account tools. In my case I found that three of the 4 of my keywords had the exact same monthly searches. This told me that those 3 words at least are being treated the same. So we picked the correct US English spelling and targeted that word.

In your case, I would assume AK-47 and AK 47 are the same so really are left with targeting just the 2 you have been AK-47 and AK47.

I think what maybe getting overlooked is the fact that Google will or can separate words in a url. I have no official proof of that except if you go to Google and type something like "Bike Shop" the words "bike" and "shop" will be bolded in domains that contain the characters bikeshop.

This if nothing else suggest that Google can at least bold 2 words they are being treated as 1 word.  Maybe Matt Cutts couldn't say this directly since it hints at something in Google's algorithm. Giving  non-descriptive advice like "if it is well indexed I'd leave it alone" is better then saying don't worry we are breaking domains apart alphabetically to ascertain words.

It almost seems trivial to worry about something like that when there are so many other things that can be done SEO'wise. I've been on both sides of the fence and have taken solace in the words of Matt Cutts if it is already well indexed leave it alone, if it is a new page or one that is preforming crappy then use / change to dashes.

Hi Logan,

I was faced with the similar question a couple years ago when I started with my current company.

The short answer is no, do not change a url that is currently using underscores to hyphens if it is well indexed.

If you're making a new page, then you should probably use hyphens instead of underscores.

Matt Cutts (Google) Hypen vs Underscore

Matt Cutts (Google) YouTube Video

Hi John

The first line removes the extension

The second line adds them back in a specific order IE you want PHP to execute first.

If you got it going that is what counts.

Good luck,

Don