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The Great URL Debate between - and _

January 19, 2010

It appears the great URL debate between - and _ is settled. What’s a better URL structure?

http://www.example.com/test_url.html

vs

http://www.example.com/test-url.html

vs

http://www.example.com/testurl.html

Well it appears as per Google Webmaster Guidelines it’s http://www.example.com/test-url.html

Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.

This may sound like a complete geek debate, but this discussion has been raging for years within the SEO community. Many of us suspected (though trial and error) that the minus sign (-) was superior, but now that it’s finally in Google’s guidelines, we can move forward.

Enjoy the tidbit of information when building your CMS system for your client.

Written by TheFounder · Filed Under Advertising Agency News 


Comments

  • mwilden

    It really annoys me when someone makes a “recommendation” without providing a shred of reasoning behind it. It's obvious why Google suggests using punctuation. But why hyphens instead of underscores? Do they have a reason, or do we just accept the voice of authority?

  • TheFounder

    I don't know man… I just found that Google updated their guidelines and thought it was newsworthy to developers and SEO's . News of this article actually resulted in a suggestion to one of my clients that was in the middle of a new CMS system they are developing… so they are using the suggested URL syntax.

    Why Google has a love affair with - and not _ is beyond my understanding… my guess it was just some arbitrary delimiter.

  • mwilden

    Hey, sorry - I didn't mean to sound like I was dissing you for posting the information. I think it's valuable. I was really just replying to Google's quote, and I should've made that clearer.

  • TheFounder

    No problem man and honestly I agree with you 10,000% ….

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