The Best File Names for SEO!

I have read several things that all seem to be conflicting so i am here to get some oponions and suggustions.

The Problem... which is better for website SEO?

File name:

1. /funny-dogs/brown-huskys/large-males/mr-french.html (dashes)

2. /funny_dogs/brown_huskys/large_males/mr_french.html (underscore)

3a. /funny dogs/brown huskys/large males/mr french.html (spaces)

3b. /funny%20dogs/brown%20huskys/large%20males/mr%20french.html (other)

I would prefer #3a but when it always give it to me with the spaces filled like #3b?

So.....

Can they be rated in BEST to WORST 1, 2, or 3? and is there a difference between 3a and 3b?

Thanks i hope i can get lots of feedback or the links to pages if this questions is answered in good detail.

Steve

Hi Steve,

Yeah when you use a space it will always replace it with a % sign.

I would suggest you use one of the following two formats while there is no real advantage from an SEO perspective by using one or the other. Your first suggestion was fine while 2 is also fine but the underscores can be hidden in links with an underline, just think of your visitors and what would be best/easiest for them.

1. /funny-dogs/brown-huskys/large-males/mr-french.html

2. /funnydogs/brownhuskys/largemales/mrfrench.html

With or without the dash Google can still make sense of it...

Regards,
Mark.

I just read an article yesterday that says hyphens work best, the interviewee was a Google employee and for the life of me I cannot find the article now. I will post it if I stumble by it again.

Okay so i get #1 (dashs) is probaly the best...

So that leave me with the followup question of:

How much of a difference is the (dashes) to the (%20 Spaces) things?

Cause i have a good portion of my webiste with the (%20) in the urls.. so should i take the time and effort to change all the Pages/Links/Etc to the (dashes) or just not worry about it? Would it make that big of a difference?

Thanks,
Steve

That depends...has your site been around for a while? If so, changing the filenames would require a 301 redirect for each page to properly redirect the search engines and visitors to the right page. The time it would take probably would outweigh the benefits. With that being said, just keep this in mind for future reference.

the 20% instead of a space thing comes from Ascii characters if i remember rightly.

Because there is no character for space so it uses 20% and renders a space when displayed.

That drove me mad for years.

I always assumed underscore was better, as it is generaly used as a space on most occasions whereas a hyphen has other connotations.

OK the over riding thing here is that neither makes a particular difference nowadays.

Hyphens used to work better.

The details....

An underscore _ is just another ASCII character. It may aw well be a, b or c

So writing my_keyword.html is just like writing mybkeyword.html. It doesn't make any difference to a search engine. (NB: Google is now very good at extracting keywords from strings)

A hyphen or minus sign - is what is known as a seperator, sometimes refered to as a special character or operator.
A hyphenated domain used to work better for search engines because they could easily distinguish individual keywords rather than seeing the whole lot as one string.

The space character was replaced with a %20 this is known as URL encoding so you can send file paths in a URL. Do a search for ASCII Character table and URL Encoding and you will see that every character such as A or B has a respective URL encoded character type.

Today the file name does not have much effect at all on rankings.

Google doesn’t algorithmically penalize for dashes in the url.

Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

MattCutts.com is really handy, alot of rare gems of advice on there.

similar to here.

Here are my rating:

1. /funny-dogs/brown-huskys/large-males/mr-french.html (dashes) Rating: 10/10

3a. /funny dogs/brown huskys/large males/mr french.html (spaces) 10/10

2. /funny_dogs/brown_huskys/large_males/mr_french.html (underscore) 8/10

3b. /funny%20dogs/brown%20huskys/large%20males/mr%20french.html (other) 5/10

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