Are underscores bad in URLs?

Most people mistakenly use underscores to indicate spaces in the web address, creating problems running the URL and leading to wrong pages. As per Google’s recommendation, only include dashes because they are easier to read and indicate spaces in a URL.

What is _ in a URL?

Google views hyphens in URLs as word separators while an underscore in your url will not be recognized. This means using hyphens makes it much easier for Google to figure out what a page is about. For example, a URL containing the phrase “my_page” would be interpreted as “mypage” instead of “my page”.

Are underscores in URLs bad for SEO?

The short answer is that you should use a hyphen for your SEO URLs. Google treats a hyphen as a word separator, but does not treat an underscore that way.

Is underscore the same as hyphen?

Alternatively referred to as a low line, low dash, and understrike, the underscore ( _ ) is a symbol found on the same keyboard key as the hyphen. The picture shows an example of an underscore at the beginning and end of the word “Underscore.”

Can you use dash in domain name?

The hyphen, commonly known as a dash (though this is typographically not correct), is the only spacing character allowed in a domain name. That makes it the only option for when you want to register a domain name with two words in it and you don’t want to—or can’t—mash them together with no space between them.

Is a dash in a URL bad?

There’s no negative impact on domain names that use dashes. In fact, search engines are able to understand hyphens and perceive them as spaces (as confirmed by Google’s Matt Cutts in this blog post on the subject of dashes and underscores).

Is dash allowed in URL?

Consider using hyphens in your URLs. It helps users and search engines identify concepts in the URL easier. We recommend that you use hyphens ( – ) instead of underscores ( _ ) in your URLs.

Is _ a dash?

An underscore, _, also called an underline, low line or low dash, is a line drawn under a segment of text….Underscore.

_ ◌̲
Underscore
Different from U+0331 ◌̱ COMBINING MACRON BELOW
Related

What should you not include in a domain to avoid potential issues?

5 Things to Never Include in a Domain Name

  1. Hyphens. If the two-or-three word domain you like is taken, it might be tempting to just add hyphens between the words to find an available domain.
  2. Trademarks. Do you blog about a company’s products?
  3. Numbers. Numbers make things confusing,
  4. Hard-to-Spell Words.
  5. Homophones.

Do hyphens matter in SEO keywords?

Having hyphens in your domain name isn’t bad for SEO and shouldn’t have a direct impact on rankings, however it can indirectly impact your SEO efforts over time if people struggle to remember the dash or if people perceive your site as being more spammy than the non-hyphenated version as this means they are less likely …