Nicollet.Net

When you optimize your website for search engines, you have to take every little facet into account. Every character in an URL is a weapon for getting a better ranking than your competitors.

Which leads to quite silly bikeshed conversations.

I have heard that when part of an URL, foo-bar is considered by Google to be a single word, while foo_bar is considered to be two words. I have also heard that foo-bar is treated as two words and foo_bar is treated as one. And I have also heard that both foo-bar and foo_bar are treated equally as two words. The variety of dates available for the resources (anywhere from 2001 to 2009) makes it even harder, as I suspect Google has been evolving their algorithms on the subjects in the last eight years.

Ironically, a search for “dashes vs underscores” reveals (in the top five ranks) websites with either underscores and dashes as separators, further adding to the confusion. What is true (and easily verified) is that when part of a search query, foo-bar is treated as two words and foo_bar is treated as one word.

It’s important to notice, however, that search engines don’t exist in a vacuum. They have to take into account whatever is the most prevalent way of presenting information. And it appears, from the many websites that use the “dashes” convention, that the “dashes as two words, underscores as one word” side of the debate has won. WordPress? Dashes. Magento? Dashes. Amazon? Dashes. Google’s own Blogger? Dashes.

So, even if the “dashes as two words, underscores as one word” side was wrong to begin with, it has become so prevalent today that it would be foolish for Google not to change their algorithm in the face of such unambiguous adoption of a word separation convention.

Besides, underscores look ugly