Re: Web Page Names: Using dash / hyphen for better search engine results???

On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:22:38 -0400, Jay Smith <jay(at)JaySmith.com> wrote:

> Does it help in search engine results / ranking / optimization if your  
> web *page* (and path) (*not* domain) name includes dashes / hyphens as  
> word separators instead of running all the words together.
> Is there any definitive information that using the dash / hyphen as a  
> word separator helps the search engines (or increase page ranking)  
> figure out what the content of the pages are?

Hi Jay,

I do not know how the majority of search engines react to different file  
naming schemes in URLs but Google does make a difference.
Just talking about Google, it definitely increases search results and  
ranking when you separate words. The question remains, how to separate  
them, by dash or by underscore.
The short answer is, Google prefers the dash.

As a source of "definite information" see a blog entry by GoogleGuy:
http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/08/greets-from-googleguy.html

For more information about this topic have a look at:
<http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-says/archives/googleguy-confirms-that-underscores-are-not-word-separators.html>
<http://developers.evrsoft.com/article/web-development/online-services/domain-name-dilemma-do-dashes-or-underscores-goose-google-rankings-more.shtml>

Cheers,


jens


-- 
Jens Brueckmann
http://www.j-a-b.net/

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