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SEO Geek - Are hyphens or underscores better for Google ranking?

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with VIO Media Group/ HItxt.com

WOW! What a title!  I'm sure most of you are sleeping already.  But...believe it or not, this is somewhat important.

If you are actively managing your online marketing efforts through SEO then you are probably doing a ton of work with Google.  If you’re not…please leave this blog and start doing so now!

Those of you who have been working with Google and have a deep understanding of the nuances of SEO, should realize the importance of URL structure.

For some time there has been debate on which was better for Google ranking: hyphens or underscores in URL strings to separate your keywords.  Well, Google recently released a statement that hyphens are viewed as separators in URL strings where underscores are not.

What this means is that hyphens, for the time being, are the way to go.  The hyphen separator will tell Google to view each keyword differently rather than as one long character string.  For example, putting ‘tulsa-oklahoma-real-estate’ in your URL string will tell Google that you have 4 relevant keywords in the URL, as opposed to ‘tulsa_oklahoma_real_estate’ which Google only views as 1.

 

An important tip for page ranking and Google optimization.

 

Good times….Mike

Comments(4)

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Royal Goodman
Royalty Home Solutions - Madera, CA
"We Treat You Like a King"
Thanks alot Mike. I have been trying to figure that out. That was a great informative post. Royal..
Mar 19, 2008 02:12 AM
Chuck Carstensen
RE/MAX Results - Elk River, MN
Minnesota/Wisconsin Real Estate Expert
Good info. I do feel like a geek now ;)
Mar 19, 2008 02:15 AM
Courtney Cooper Neese
Seattle, WA
206-850-8841
Shoot!  I better go see that they are like that in my personal blog...
Mar 19, 2008 02:16 AM
Michael Ouellette
VIO Media Group/ HItxt.com - North Attleboro, MA
hitxt.com
Hey Courtney - My advice would be not to make a huge project out of a switch.  If it's easy for you to do then sure, why not.  But if it's going to be tons of your time I would just think about this for the future and not worry about what's already up.  Google is known for changing on a dime :-)
Mar 19, 2008 02:21 AM