Google - is there a difference between page_title and page-title

[MASTERforge]

Ive done loads of research on SEO optimisation but I can't find one simple answer. Does google behave differently with:

website_url

and

website-url

Does it affect the way my page is ranked when I use _ or - in the URL titles?

Currently I have a mixture of the two but I suspect - is having a better impact in google searches. If this is the case I will switch the rest of the URL's over.

Merry christmas everybody and thanks for all your help this year.

[Mike Hughes]

Yes, there is a difference. There are a few posts on this forum about this but it boils down to the way google interprets a hyphen and an underscore.

An underscore is ignored by Google so the two words run together, whereas a hyphen is seen as a stop character and thus the two words are seen as being separate.

Matt Cutts from google recommends using hyphens between words as this will give a better match in google for the two words. An alternative thought though is that you might want the words to run together as Google does find matches within a run of words.

Take an example. Gun-shop will rank very well for 'gun' and 'shop'. Gun_shop will rank less well for 'gun' and 'shop' as google sees it as being 'gunshop'. This does mean though that it will rank better if anyone searches for 'gunshop' and will also do better for searches for 'guns'.

This does imply that there's no real point in using the underscore as far as google is concerned.

Conclusion? Use a hyphen if you want the words to be seen by google as separate words.

Mike

[MASTERforge]

Thanks for the advice. I know what I will be working on over christmas

Does this method apply to all files for example:

gun_shop.jpg or gun-shop.jpg

and

gun_shop.wmv or gun-shop.wmv

Would the same method applied to other extensions have the same effect?

Thanks

[Mike Hughes]

personally I avoid hyphens and underscores in image filenames. There might be some benefits to using them but it's really playing around at the edges and there are always lots of more important things to worry about.

Mike

[MASTERforge]

From what I understand the underscores are necessary for the picture files as some browsers have problems without it.

Enjoying a few beers and now on the rose wine on xmas eve. Seasons greetings to you all

[wjcampbe]

It is not necessary to have an underscore if you just eliminate the space, but yes, some older browsers would have a problem with a space in an image name, so best avoided. Either use underscore, hyphen or just run the words together in the image filename.