Thank you VERY MUCH Sir! I really do appreciate that...
May 9, 2005, 11:49 AM
Veteran / Moderator (6956 posts)
May 9, 2005, 11:49 AM
Post #27 of 28
Views: 2538
Not that I want to dredge this thread up, but I felt I needed to point this out, if nothing else, to avoid keeping a secret in an open discussion.
In another discussion, I was prompted to do a search for "hypen vs underscore"
Guess what the first page or two to come up were? This thread, with the "_" character in the URL.
It had a PR of 0.
Several pages below it had a PR of 1 or more.
So... URL's are counted differently than body text. The _ seems to be well parsed.
If you want to "nail" your searches, use the "_" in your URL's *and* put (maybe even hidden) the "_" version of your main keyword on your page, since that will be indexed as-is, giving you an edge if a user searches for "key_word" rather than "key word" or "key-word".
This isn't "proof" one way or the other, but if the #1 ranked for this search is a set of pages with a PR of 0, and "_" in the URL, ... it has to mean _something_
PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.
The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.
In another discussion, I was prompted to do a search for "hypen vs underscore"
Guess what the first page or two to come up were? This thread, with the "_" character in the URL.
It had a PR of 0.
Several pages below it had a PR of 1 or more.
So... URL's are counted differently than body text. The _ seems to be well parsed.
If you want to "nail" your searches, use the "_" in your URL's *and* put (maybe even hidden) the "_" version of your main keyword on your page, since that will be indexed as-is, giving you an edge if a user searches for "key_word" rather than "key word" or "key-word".
This isn't "proof" one way or the other, but if the #1 ranked for this search is a set of pages with a PR of 0, and "_" in the URL, ... it has to mean _something_
PUGDOG� Enterprises, Inc.
The best way to contact me is to NOT use Email.
Please leave a PM here.
May 9, 2005, 7:56 PM
Novice (9 posts)
May 9, 2005, 7:56 PM
Post #28 of 28
Views: 2488
Yes, it's funny that Google ranks that thread as #1 for the phrase "Hyphen vs. Underscore" now. It's a testament to how G likes to see fresh content, isn't it?
I don't really think ANYBODY (except maybe webmasters) does searches with an underscore between keywords (or a hyphen for that matter). It is either just the keywords themselves OR as a exact search with quotation marks around them.
I won't restart the debate here either, but I'd just avoid underscores in general.
But, to each his own perhaps... It's great that GT has added an option to use a "-"!
By the way, my #1 rank at Yahoo (+ Alta Vista/AllTheWeb) for "web site designs" (without quotes) is still holding up, despite the result pages total going down from 54 Million to 49 Million. Hey, I must have done SOMETHING right! ;)
Best regards,
Gamecock
I don't really think ANYBODY (except maybe webmasters) does searches with an underscore between keywords (or a hyphen for that matter). It is either just the keywords themselves OR as a exact search with quotation marks around them.
I won't restart the debate here either, but I'd just avoid underscores in general.
But, to each his own perhaps... It's great that GT has added an option to use a "-"!
By the way, my #1 rank at Yahoo (+ Alta Vista/AllTheWeb) for "web site designs" (without quotes) is still holding up, despite the result pages total going down from 54 Million to 49 Million. Hey, I must have done SOMETHING right! ;)
Best regards,
Gamecock