Do Dashes or Underscores Goose Google Rankings More?

Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in sitepronews.com
the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own theory

:¬}

Domain Name Dilemma: Do Dashes
or Underscores Goose
Google Rankings More?
By John Gergye

It's a fact. When it comes to Google ranking you don't have to be a lot
better to beat out the competition.
So let's take another dip into the "every little bit helps" pool.

Now believe it or not there are those who like to debate the merits of
using dashes or underscores in domain names.




Some assert dashes are better.

Some have an ongoing love affair with underscores.

Others are certain there is no difference.

I agree you do get a bit of a bounce in Google if you do this right. But
it's only marginal.

Still let's end this debate once and for all and PROVE which is better.

To sort this out we need to conduct a study. Using the Google search
results to test if Google treats dashes or underscores the same or
differently.

The guinea pig search term I picked is "affordable search engine
placement".

There's nothing special about it. It's more or less your run-of-the-mill
multi-word search term.

So let's get searching.




First, to set a benchmark I cast the broadest net possible by doing a
simple search using

affordable search engine placement

Google returned these results:

Searched the web for affordable search engine placement. Results 1 - 10
of about 78,600

That simply says there were 78,600 pages indexed by Google for ANY of
those keywords.

Next I searched on the same phrase only this time I separated the words
by dashes like this:

affordable-search-engine-placement

Google turned up these results:

Searched the web for affordable-search-engine-placement. Results 1 - 10
of about 1,160.

As you can see our term with dashes gave considerably fewer results than
the one without.




Then I searched on the same words separated by underscores:

affordable_search_engine_placement

For this one Google didn't find much:

Searched the web for affordable_search_engine_placement. Results 1 - 4
of about 6.

Whoa! Next to no pages with underscores, right?

Finally I searched for

"affordable search engine placement"

Note the quotes. Using quotes limits the search results to one specific
phrase. Just like you were doing an advanced search for that exact
phrase.

In this case Google returned these results:

Searched the web for "affordable search engine placement". Results 1 -
10 of about 1,160.

Put A Google-Type Ad Box on 5 Search Engines
Your Keywords - Top 10 Placement

All for $12/URL or Less, PLUS
Sign Up Today and Receive FR-E-E Bonus Software



Huh, exactly the same number of pages as with the keyword phrase with
dashes.

Okay so what do we got?

Let's see. The first search returns what you could say is a free for all
of listings with any of the words in the keyword phrase. That's why
there are so many search results.

SIDEBAR: Reality check time. This is how most search. In fact I saw a
stat that said only 3% use the advanced search feature provided by
Google. Yet the dramatically bigger number of resulting SERPS explains
why it is harder to rank high sometimes. Reason being you are going up
against a whole bunch more pages - some unrelated to what is being
searched for. So it's takes more juice, i.e. on-page optimization,
internal links and maybe even in bound links to come out on top.

Now our study also showed the phrase with underscores (which Google
treats as any other CHARACTER) produced negligible results. As in next
to none.

While the keyword phrase with dashes and the exact phrase search turned
up the same number of listings.

At this point you should be wondering "Why is that?"

Glad you asked. Even if you didn't let me explain. Oh and since this is
important engage your brain NOW.

The reason for this apparent match of search results is Google uses the
dash to separate the words in the phrase. Programmers call this a
"delimiter". In essence Google sees it as a space or separator between
the words. Or in other words Google treats the dash as a spacer.

Yet Google does NOT treat the underscore as a delimiter. Again to Google
it's just another character.

Which is proven by the search results. Had Google treated the dash and
underscore alike the number of SERPs returned for

affordable_search_engine_placement
or
affordable-search-engine-placement

would be identical. But as you saw they are not. Not even close.

So the answer to the original question of which is better dashes or
underscores is obvious isn't it? You want to go with dashes in your
domain names, folder names, files names etc.

That's because using dashes to separate the words will give you the
biggest Google impact - whatever that impact may be. Since Google can
parse the different words. While using underscores won't help one iota.

Look. This isn't theory or speculation. It's fact. And you can repeat
the same searches with any keyword phrase you want and you'll get the
same results.

In any case let's be real. Don't expect some kind of massive boost from
this dash trick. Sure it can help a tad as part of an over all
optimization scheme. But whether or not you use dashes in a domain,
folder or file name is not going to be what gets you top Google
listings. Content and links are.

Still this study settles the debate about dashes and underscores. Giving
you yet another little thing you can do to rank well.

--
--
Alex Gogan - meta (AT) fbi (DOT) ie
"The pen is mightier than the sword" - Earle Edward George
Bulwer-Lytton
(1803-1873)

Alex Gogan wrote:

Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in
sitepronews.com the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own theory

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back

Brothermark wrote:

Alex Gogan wrote:
Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in
sitepronews.com the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own
theory

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back

Switch to hyphens. Dashes are not part of either the reserved or the
unrerserved character sets within RFC2396 and are likely to cause
difficulties unless represented by the appropriate escaped octet code.

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

Alex Gogan wrote:

Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in
sitepronews.com the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own theory

Yeah, dashes/ hyphens are treated as word-separators-making-a-phrase by
the Google input-box.
E.g.
search-engine-optimization
is the same
search.engine.optimization
or
"search engine optimization"
or
search/engine/optimization
or
search:engineptimization

Not that this alone would proof hyphens should be preferred to
underscores just because the Google-search-box prefers them, but yes,
the conclusion is right. They should be preferred to underscores
because of backlinks using the URL.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

Use hyphens. A Google employee posted such at Webmasterworld.
--
http://www.dextromethorphan.ws/
For information about the psychedelic drug DXM, including dangers.
Yet another murder by someone on Coricidin:
http://www.coricidin.org/kansas-coricidin-murder.htm

Brothermark wrote:

Alex Gogan wrote:
Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in
sitepronews.com the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own theory

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back


I have only being using them since 1997 but hey what do I know >:¬}

--
--
Alex Gogan - meta (AT) fbi (DOT) ie
"The pen is mightier than the sword" - Earle Edward George
Bulwer-Lytton
(1803-1873)

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back

Switch to hyphens. Dashes are not part of either the reserved or the
unrerserved character sets within RFC2396 and are likely to cause
difficulties unless represented by the appropriate escaped octet code.

snob

Brothermark wrote:

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back

Switch to hyphens. Dashes are not part of either the reserved or the
unrerserved character sets within RFC2396 and are likely to cause
difficulties unless represented by the appropriate escaped octet
code.

snob

?

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

PeterMcC wrote:

Brothermark wrote:
Alex Gogan wrote:
Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in
sitepronews.com the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own
theory

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back

Switch to hyphens. Dashes are not part of either the reserved or the
unrerserved character sets within RFC2396 and are likely to cause
difficulties unless represented by the appropriate escaped octet code.

1. What do you understand by the words "hyphen" and "dash", please?

2. The relevant section of that RFC appears to say this:

-------------
2.3. Unreserved Characters

Data characters that are allowed in a URI but do not have a reserved
purpose are called unreserved. These include upper and lower case
letters, decimal digits, and a limited set of punctuation marks and
symbols.

unreserved = alphanum | mark

mark = "-" | "_" | "." | "!" | "~" | "*" | "'" | "(" | ")"

Unreserved characters can be escaped without changing the semantics
of the URI, but this should not be done unless the URI is being used
in a context that does not allow the unescaped character to appear.

-------------

Doesn't this mean that both - and _ are perfectly acceptible in a URI?

James

James wrote:

PeterMcC wrote:
Brothermark wrote:
Alex Gogan wrote:
Thought you guys in the group would like this, it was in
sitepronews.com the other day.

Of course I would not have posted it if it did not prove my own
theory

Yep, thanks for posting.
I switched to dashes a while back

Switch to hyphens. Dashes are not part of either the reserved or the
unrerserved character sets within RFC2396 and are likely to cause
difficulties unless represented by the appropriate escaped octet
code.

1. What do you understand by the words "hyphen" and "dash", please?

2. The relevant section of that RFC appears to say this:

-------------
2.3. Unreserved Characters

Data characters that are allowed in a URI but do not have a
reserved purpose are called unreserved. These include upper and
lower case letters, decimal digits, and a limited set of
punctuation marks and symbols.

unreserved = alphanum | mark

mark = "-" | "_" | "." | "!" | "~" | "*" | "'" | "(" |
")"

Unreserved characters can be escaped without changing the semantics
of the URI, but this should not be done unless the URI is being
used in a context that does not allow the unescaped character to
appear.

-------------

Doesn't this mean that both - and _ are perfectly acceptible in a URI?

There seems to be some confusion between a hyphen and a dash. You are
absolutely right that the hyphen and the underscore are both acceptable as
regards RFC2396 though the consensus is that the hyphen is significantly
better than the underscore as regards Google's seeing the separated words.
The dash shouldn't be used in a URI

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.