Sounds useful, but you might want to include an option to use a hyphen rather than an underscore.

See http://www.webmasterworld.com/...en+underscore+google and other engine watch sites.

The fact is the game changes all the time, and for any optimization plugin to be really worth the money, it must be flexible, capable of adapting to what the folks at Google decide to do next.

The link above goes to a login page. It seems that the article you're referring to is a member-only type of thing.

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The link points to a thread in Home / Forums Index / The Marketing World / Keyword Discussion which is public. Only WebmasterWorld Supporters Forum is Paid.
>> Nakul Goyal (SEO, Link Building Expert)
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Sorry, didn't realize I had a cookie pass into the paid section.

The gist of the discussion, dated a year ago, was that Google & Inktomi back then clearly preferred hyphens to underscores in path names.

This seems the case with Google today, as I recently have verified myself. That is, Google will not return a page in its database with a pathname of the form "keyword1_keyword2_keyword3" when searched with "keyword1 keyword2 keyword3." But it will return a page with "keyword1-keyword2-keyword3" in the path.

I haven't checked Inktomi's present response. But note the general "pressure" on the folks programing engines is toward accepting hyphens, since hyphens are legal in urls, while underscores are not.

I'm not claming this is the last word. No such thing in optimizing for engines. A couple years ago, underscores were indeed all the rage, and I too was writing paths with underscores for all my clients' sites. Not today, but tomorrow I may be doing it again.

My point with respect to the current plugin discussion is that a really useful search engine optimizing plugin will take into account that the rules of the game do change, and provide configuration options so even those who can't hack the thing can roll with the punches.

P.S. Google also seems to read and index plain spaces (MS style) and %20 as multi-term path and filename separators.

Regarding: P.S. Google also seems to read and index plain spaces (MS style) and %20 as multi-term path and filename separators.

This is True. Should have a BAD effect on the SEO of that page. or atleast no positive effect.
>> Nakul Goyal (SEO, Link Building Expert)
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The problem with google is they see this kword_kword2_kword3 as ONE long, strange sounding word, but it sees kword-kword2-kword3 as 3 distinct, seperate words.

This has been discussed at great length on many threads on webmasterworld, there is no doubt it would be in all of our best interest to get this problem solved.