SEO articles - don't use underscores in URLs!

antic

antic

Perch
Another interesting article, this time about (non)ethical SEO, entitled:
Ethical search engine optimisation my foot!

Read the second comment beneath it. This was news to me - they're saying Google counts URLs with underscores as ONE WORD, whereas URLs with hyphens get separate-word treatment.

e.g.
www.domain.com/seo_and_underscores.html is treated as one joined phrase, whereas:
www.domain.com/seo-and-underscores.html is treated as separate searchable words.

Great article here with test results from google (the only search engine on the net.. :rolleyes: )
http://www.prweaver.com/blog/2004/08/26/2-hyphen-and-underscore

Pity.. I thought underscores looked cooler. :)
 
Thanks Antic - I'd always wondered about that. Good gen.

Re Google - I've found that MSN indexes sites much quicker, and more accurately too - I'm going off Google big time.
 
Sounds like a very useful tip... thanks. That one has passed me by completely.

Google has gone way down in my estimation lately. It appears to weigh external links as almost the only important thing when it comes to indexing. Actual relevance to the search term currently existing on the site is definitely secondary, meaning sites that get a good search position early on almost never shift from there, even if much more relevant hits appear in 'less popular' sites that have appeared since. MSN, and even Yahoo, do a much better job these days finding 'real' relevant hits, as opposed to historical popularity and link planting.

They also index the site much faster and more often. MSNbot hit one of my sites every day last month (without any bot directions), and had the latest version of every page in their cache. Googlebot appeared in the stats once, didn't cache any updated pages, and in any case only ever caches the home page despite all pages being straight html linked from every other page!
 
Yo Bro - right on. MSN spideres my sites every day just about and does a good job indexing them too. Google on the other hand, despite using their site maps thingy, is very slow and pretty naff at indexing. As you say, about the only relevance they attach is how many sites link to you. I've used Web Position extensively to improve rankings on Google - with not much luck - whereas MSN does a super job all by itself. Also, a search on Google invariably just brings up these annoying aggregating sites trying to sell stuff, instead of useful gen.
If I was a Google shareholder I'd sell while they're (currently) on top.
 
BluJag said:
... I've used Web Position extensively to improve rankings on Google - with not much luck -...
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention that program in particular, because I came across this yesterday on http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html : "Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold? that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google."

Not that I necessarily believe a single word Google say. I was on the site to see what they said about how they parse the robots.txt file. I tried some of the examples they give onsite, and submitted the file through their robots.txt submit form. They report that their own example files contain illegal terms and the file cannot be read...
 
"When money talks truth is silent"....Google has sold out to mammon and is only interested in making megga bucks to pay out dividends to all it's new shareholders. So, tough luck if you don't want to pay-per-click. Evolution I guess. I wonder who'll be top dog in 5 years ?
 
Beats me, but they won't be doing it off my back. If their shareholders crash and burn it'll be their own fault for paying fortunes for what is essentially not much more than goodwill towards an altruistic idea that no longer exists. Wikipedia is more like the idea Google used to be, but I suspect it's a matter of time before they sell out too. (Not sure if that's technically as easy as selling off Google was).
I have Google ads (and most others) blocked in my browser so I don't even have to download them, never mind be tempted to click on them. It's amazing how nice the net is to read once you've blocked all the ads; just like when I was a nipper. :)
Not that I would suggest most people do that. Too many people blocking ads will just make the agencies more determined to get them through by more nefarious means.
 
antic said:
Read the second comment beneath it. This was news to me - they're saying Google counts URLs with underscores as ONE WORD, whereas URLs with hyphens get separate-word treatment.
Click to expand...

You'd think that if the SE spiders are smart enough to separate the words with a dash, they'd be smart enough to separate the words with a hyphen...
 
"You'd think that if the SE spiders are smart enough to separate the words with a dash, they'd be smart enough to separate the words with a hyphen..."

Good point.
 
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