google underscore test results

google underscore versus hyphen indexing test

page file name:
chalcakloopy-cganveeeing_doreaivnically_phreanatoindment-bafdiadiiafy.html

page title:
<title>teawufloppafomper-flevalitettaeilanvincely_capamafiandhfollicruxzst_ audfivatrdatalnmafluzs-ahgonnvohunnytion</title>



relevant google searches:

file name strings:
chalcakloopy
cganveeeing
doreaivnically
phreanatoindment
bafdiadiiafy


page title strings:
teawufloppafomper
flevalitettaeilanvincely
capamafiandhfollicruxzst
audfivatrdatalnmafluzs
ahgonnvohunnytion




.

Rz -

I'm seeing results for bafdiadiiafy and chalcakloopy - both only in your url separated by hyphens.

Edit: now that was a quick edit rz! Nice test.

Edit x2: From this it is clear that Google separates words with hyphens but not underscores. Excellent work.

Nice job!
100%
:smile:

Good validation. I already went through my site and changed the url's that wouldn't totally screw up my serps due to loss of pr. Just a note of caution, sites should not be modified wholesale unless there are no sales involved. Selective re-naming to include the keywords without underscores should be employed knowing that the pr for the modified page will go to PR0.

Excellent Zoolie, you the man!

cool, great job

now...

the first person to post correct definitions for all ten test words above will receive a club r|z promotion.

:-D

Ummmmmm ... that's a pretty simple, but effective/telling test Zoolie - hard to argue with those results - I actually have a similar test up right now and so far, it agrees with your results.

I recall testing this a while back and it certainly appeared that the underscores were being treated as seperators, but this may have changed.

I will argue that underscores SHOULD be seperators, since I think it "looks" cleaner (plus there are "real" words that are hyphen seperated, whereas I don't think underscores are used this way). For example, look at the dmoz listings.

Another science experiment would be how to other search engines handle this. And finally, I'd be real surprised if Google doesn't change this sometime down the road.

Regardless, I think you nailed it with your simple test - nice job!
alek

I'm afraid I don't agree

The first and last words only show in both cases

The second word following the hyphen does not [in both cases] unless it is the last word in the string

I meant to add

Go try

allintext:weber bbqs

the no 1 is us and is

www.growlers-sausages.com/weber_bbqs.htm

with the weber and bbqs hilited

look further down at the others!

I did what you suggested:


I received 91,900 pages on Google.

I then tried allintext:weber_bbqs. Guess what? Google returned only 2 pages.

I then tried allintext:weber-bbqs. Google returned only 3,370 pages.

The returns from Google on all three configurations are significantly different.

I have concluded that we may be wrong. Google interprets the underscore and the hyphen differently than just a space. Maybe we are back at square one, unless someone can explain this anomaly.

Were you going to say something SEO AM?

Actually:

Although the test is incomplete and could be further tested for certain details, it looks like that keywords that are not deliminated by hypens or underscores on both sides are used as keywords. The following are all valid:

_zoolie
zooler_
-zooling
relax-

The following are not valid:

_zoolington_
_relaxing-
-justanotherkeyword_
-thiskeywordcantbevalid-


Hexed

Is valid (and is delimited by hyphons.

But

Is not valid.

Seems to prove a point.

Tried to post earlier but the SEO Chat decided it didn't like me. Maybe the same problem with SEO_AM too?

Yep - sorry

I don't know what happened with your post earlier but I only saw the quote perhaps its this forum engine!

However Vord and hexed well said :-)