Are underscores bad in URLs or are they just hype? We’ve all heard the rumors, but few have taken the time to comb through the research and truly understand the implications of using underscores in our URLs. Is this something we should be losing sleep over or is it just another nit-picky detail that ultimately won’t affect website performance?
As someone who’s spent a fair amount of time in the trenches of SEO, I can tell you that this question is not as simple as it may seem. Some people swear by underscores, while others swear them off completely. But who’s really right? That’s what I set out to discover. So, grab a cup of coffee and let’s dive into the world of URL structuring. Because if you’re anything like me, you need a little clarity when it comes to SEO recommendations.
The use of underscores in URLs
Underscores ‘_’ have long been a debated topic when it comes to URL optimization. They are used to separate words in a URL when spaces cannot be used. However, Google’s search engine algorithm has historically had issues interpreting underscores as word separators. As a result, the use of dashes ‘-‘ in URLs has been preferred over underscores to improve search engine optimization (SEO).
Pros of using underscores in URLs
- Underscores are easier to type than dashes. Users may prefer to use underscores instead of dashes if given the option.
- In certain circumstances, Google is able to effectively interpret underscores as word separators.
Cons of using underscores in URLs
There is a multitude of disadvantages to using underscores in URLs from an SEO standpoint.
- Underscores are often seen as a single word or character by Google. This means that search engines will not separate them when querying for specific words. This can result in your website not ranking for certain search queries.
- Underscores do not add any readability advantages to URLs. They can make URLs appear cluttered and difficult to read for users.
- Underscores can be misinterpreted as spaces by users. This can cause URLs with underscores to break when copied and pasted into a browser.
Conclusion
Although the use of underscores in URLs can have some advantages, it is not recommended from an SEO standpoint. It is best to stick with dashes to ensure better ranking on search engines and to improve overall website readability.
| Underscores | Dashes |
|---|---|
| website_design | website-design |
| page_one | page-one |
| blog_post | blog-post |
The table above shows a comparison between using underscores and dashes in URLs. As you can see, dashes offer a more organized and readable URL structure.
The Impact of URL Structure on SEO
URL structure plays a significant role in search engine optimization (SEO). It refers to the way URLs are organized on a website. A website’s URL structure must be designed in a way that enables search engines to effectively crawl and index web pages.
One crucial aspect of URL structure is the use of underscores or hyphens. Many website owners often wonder whether underscores are bad for URLs. While there is no straightforward answer to this question, there are a few things to consider.
- Underscores can make URLs difficult to read and separate words. This can make it challenging for search engines to understand the contents of a page, thereby negatively impacting the website’s SEO.
- Hyphens, on the other hand, make it easier to read and separate words in URLs. This can enhance the website’s SEO by allowing search engines to better understand the contents of a page.
- Underscores are often used in programming languages to separate words in variable names. This underscores a sense of inconsistency, leading to confusion among search engines and users alike. Inconsistent URLs can hinder website ranking and indexing.
Another factor to consider is the length of URLs. Longer URLs can be an issue when it comes to SEO, as they make it harder for search engines to crawl and index content. Long, complex URLs tend to confuse both search engines and users, which can lead to lower search rankings.
URL structure can have a profound impact on the online visibility of a website. To optimize website ranking and indexing, website owners should aim to create a URL structure that is consistent, readable, and easy to understand for search engines and users alike.
| Advantages of hyphens in URLs | Disadvantages of underscores in URLs |
|---|---|
| Hyphens improve readability and enhance user experience. | Underscores can make URLs difficult to read and understand. |
| Hyphenated words are easier to read and remember. | Users might mistake an underscore for a space and type the wrong URL. |
| Hyphens help search engines understand the contents of a page better. | Underscores create inconsistencies in URLs. |
Overall, hyphens are more beneficial in URL structures when it comes to SEO. They improve the readability and user experience, enhance website ranking and indexing, and prevent confusion among search engines and users.
The difference between underscores and hyphens in URLs
When it comes to optimizing URLs for search engines, web developers and content creators need to consider a variety of factors – from readability and user experience to search engine optimization (SEO) and website structure. One important consideration is whether to use underscores or hyphens in URLs, as these two special characters can have a significant impact on how search engines interpret your website content, and how users interact with your site.
Hyphens vs. Underscores: Pros and Cons
- Hyphens:
- Pro: Google (and other search engines) treat hyphens as word separators, which can help them better understand the content of your site.
- Pro: Hyphens are easier to read than underscores, which can make your URLs more user-friendly and accessible.
- Con: Hyphens take up more space in URLs, which can be an issue if you have a long URL structure or are trying to conserve space.
- Underscores:
- Pro: Underscores are easy to type, and don’t require users to use the “shift” key (like hyphens) to insert them into URLs.
- Con: Google (and other search engines) treat underscores as word joiners, which can lead to indexing problems and confusion about the content of your site.
- Con: Underscores can be harder to read than hyphens, especially if you have long URLs or complicated folder structures.
Practical Considerations
Ultimately, the decision to use hyphens or underscores in your URLs will depend on a variety of practical considerations, including:
- The existing URL structure of your site
- The readability and accessibility of your URLs
- The length of your URLs and the amount of space you have to work with
- Your website’s SEO goals and strategies
As a general rule, it’s typically best to use hyphens in URLs instead of underscores, as they are more SEO-friendly and user-friendly. However, there may be practical reasons to use underscores in specific cases, such as when you have existing URLs that use underscores and want to maintain consistency, or when you have a large number of URLs that are difficult to change without disrupting your site’s structure and user experience.
| Hyphens | Underscores |
|---|---|
| /blog/hyphens-in-urls | /blog/underscores_in_urls |
| /products/smart-phones/iphone11 | /products/smart_phones/iphone11 |
| /store/t-shirts/red-t-shirt | /store/t_shirts/red_t_shirt |
Ultimately, the decision to use hyphens or underscores in URLs is just one small part of optimizing your website for search engines and users. By considering the pros and cons of each of these characters in the context of your own site’s structure and goals, you can make an informed choice that will help you create URLs that are both SEO-friendly and user-friendly.
Best practices for URL optimization
When it comes to optimizing your website’s URLs, there are a few best practices that you should follow to ensure that your URLs are not only SEO-friendly but also user-friendly. Here are some tips that you can use to optimize your URLs:
- Keep your URLs short and sweet: Your URLs should ideally be between 50-60 characters long. Shorter URLs are not only easier to read, but they are also easier for search engines to crawl and index. By keeping your URLs concise, you can also make them more memorable for your users.
- Avoid using underscores in your URLs: Underscores are not recommended in URLs as search engines may not consider them as word separators. They can also cause confusion for users who may mistake them for spaces. It is best to use hyphens or dashes to separate words in your URLs.
- Include your keywords in your URLs: Your URLs should include relevant keywords that describe the content on your page. This can help search engines understand what your page is about and improve your search rankings.
URL optimization checklist
Before publishing a new page or post on your website, make sure to follow these steps to ensure that your URL is optimized for search engines and users:
- Create a URL that is relevant and descriptive of your page content.
- Keep your URL short and sweet, preferably between 50-60 characters.
- Avoid using underscores in your URLs.
- Include your target keywords in your URL.
- Ensure that your URL is readable and easy to understand for your users.
- Make sure that your URL is unique and doesn’t conflict with any other pages on your website.
URL structure and hierarchy
Your website’s URL structure should reflect the hierarchy of your website’s content. This means that your top-level pages should have shorter URLs and more specific pages should have longer URLs that include additional relevant keywords.
For example, if you have a website about hiking, your top-level category pages could have URLs like:
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/hiking
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/trails
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/gear
Whereas more specific pages about hiking trails could have URLs like:
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/trails/grand-canyon
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/trails/mt-whitney
- http://www.yourwebsite.com/trails/yosemite
| URL Structure | Example |
|---|---|
| Top-level pages | http://www.yourwebsite.com/hiking |
| Secondary pages | http://www.yourwebsite.com/trails |
| Specific pages | http://www.yourwebsite.com/trails/grand-canyon |
By following a logical URL structure like this, you can make it easier for users to navigate your website and find the content they are looking for. Additionally, it can also help search engines understand the organization and hierarchy of your website’s content.
How URLs affect website usability
URLs are an essential part of website navigation and can significantly affect website usability. They are the address of a webpage and provide users and search engines with a way to identify and access specific pages on a website. Clear, concise, and user-friendly URLs can make a website more accessible and improve user experience, while poor URLs can lead to confusion and frustration for users.
The impact of underscores in URLs on website usability
- Underscores are often used as a substitute for a space in a URL, but they can cause problems for website usability.
- Underscores can make URLs harder to read, especially when they are used excessively or in long URLs.
- Underscores can lead to confusion and errors when users manually type URLs, as they are often mistaken for hyphens or spaces.
Best practices for creating user-friendly URLs
Here are some best practices to follow when creating URLs:
- Use hyphens to separate words in a URL instead of underscores or other characters.
- Keep URLs short and descriptive, avoiding unnecessary words or characters.
- Use lowercase letters in URLs to avoid confusion and errors.
- Avoid using session IDs or other dynamic parameters in URLs, as they can lead to duplicate content and indexing issues.
Following these best practices can help create user-friendly URLs that improve website usability and provide users with a clear path to navigate a website.
Conclusion
URLs play a critical role in website usability, and using underscores in URLs can cause confusion and frustration for users. By following best practices for creating user-friendly URLs, websites can improve their usability and provide users with an enjoyable browsing experience.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great for separating words in file names. | Cannot be used in search engines. |
| HTML Elements differentiate words when spaces are not allowed. | Can cause ambiguation with dashes. |
| Creates URL pattern to follow. | Word separation limited. |
While there are pros and cons to using underscores in URLs, it’s generally best to avoid using them to ensure maximum website usability.
The Evolution of URL Structure Over Time
Since the inception of the World Wide Web, URLs or Uniform Resource Locators have been an integral part of how people access information online. The structure of URLs has evolved over time, as the internet has grown and new technologies have emerged. Here’s a quick overview of the changes that have taken place, and where we stand today:
The Early Days
- In the early days of the web, URLs were often long and complicated, with a lot of unnecessary information included. For example, a URL might look something like this: http://www.example.com/index.php?page=about_us&lang=en_US&year=2019
- At this point in time, underscores were a common way to separate words in URLS.
The Rise of User-Friendly URLs
As the web became more popular, developers started to realize that using shorter, simpler URLs would make it easier for people to remember and share links. This led to the development of “user-friendly” URLs, which are also known as “friendly URLs,” “pretty URLs,” or “clean URLs.”
- User-friendly URLs often use hyphens instead of underscores to separate words. For example, a user-friendly version of the URL listed above might look like this: http://www.example.com/about-us
- User-friendly URLs are also often shorter and more human-readable than their counterparts, making them easier to remember and share.
The Emergence of Dynamic Content
As the web continued to evolve, developers began to create more dynamic and interactive websites. This led to the adoption of new technologies such as PHP and Ruby on Rails, which allowed developers to build websites that could generate content on the fly based on user input and other factors.
However, this dynamic content often resulted in long and complicated URLs that weren’t very user-friendly. To address this problem, developers began to come up with new ways to organize and structure dynamic content.
Modern URL Structure Best Practices
Today, the best practice for creating URLs is to make them as short and simple as possible, while still including the necessary information to help users and search engines understand what the page is about.
Here are a few key things to keep in mind when creating URLs:
| Best Practice | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Use hyphens to separate words | Hyphens are more readable than underscores and easier for users and search engines to parse. |
| Avoid using numbers and other characters | Numbers and other characters can make URLs more complicated than necessary and can be confusing for users. |
| Keep URLs as short as possible | Shorter URLs are easier for users to remember and share, and may also be more likely to be clicked on in search results. |
By following these best practices, developers can create URLs that are both user-friendly and search engine-friendly, which can help to improve the visibility and usability of their websites.
Deep Dive into URL Path Hierarchy
URLs play a critical role in making your website discoverable by search engines and users alike. A poorly structured URL can hurt your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and user experience. One of the debated topics in URL structure is the use of underscores in URLs; are underscores bad in URLs? Let’s take a deep dive into URL path hierarchy and explore this topic further.
Are Underscores Bad in URLs?
- Underscores can complicate URL readability for users
- Google prefers hyphens over underscores in URLs
- Underscores can cause problems with legacy systems and programming languages that don’t support them
While the use of underscores in URLs won’t necessarily hurt your SEO efforts, it’s still best to avoid them. According to Google, hyphens are treated as word separators while underscores are not. This can impact the way search engines interpret the different parts of your URL and potentially hurt your rankings. Additionally, underscores can create confusion and be difficult for users to read, which can lead to a poor user experience.
Deep Dive into URL Path Hierarchy
When optimizing your URLs, it’s essential to understand the importance of your URL path hierarchy. The URL path hierarchy indicates the structure of different pages on your website, making it easier for users to navigate and search engines to understand.
Let’s consider an example. Say you have a website that sells shoes. To optimize your URL path hierarchy, you may structure your URLs as follows:
- Homepage: www.example.com/
- Product Categories: www.example.com/men-shoes/ or www.example.com/women-shoes/
- Product Pages: www.example.com/men-shoes/running-shoes/ or www.example.com/women-shoes/high-heels/
In this example, the URL path hierarchy helps to differentiate between different pages and categories of shoes, making it easier for users to navigate to the pages they want and for search engines to understand the content of your website.
The Impact of URL Path Hierarchy on SEO
| Elements | Examples | Impact on SEO |
|---|---|---|
| Top-level domain | www.example.com | Low |
| Subdomain | blog.example.com or store.example.com | Moderate |
| Directory | www.example.com/blog/ | High |
| Filename | www.example.com/blog/example-article/ | Low |
As shown in the table, the directory level of your URL path hierarchy has the most significant impact on SEO. By structuring your URLs properly and including relevant keywords, you can improve your website’s search rankings and make it easier for users to find your content.
In conclusion, to improve the user experience, avoid using underscores in your URLs, and instead opt for hyphens. Additionally, structure your URLs using a clear and organized path hierarchy that helps search engines understand your website’s content and makes it easier for users to navigate to the pages they want. By optimizing your URL structure, you can improve your website’s SEO and achieve higher rankings in search engine results.
Are underscores bad in URLs? FAQs
Q: Does using underscores in URLs affect SEO?
A: Yes, using underscores in URLs can negatively impact SEO as search engines see underscores as word joiners instead of word separators.
Q: Can underscores be used in place of spaces in URLs?
A: Technically yes, but it is not recommended as it can cause confusion in tracking and lower the readability of URLs.
Q: Are there any exceptions to not using underscores in URLs?
A: Yes, if a website is already using underscores in URLs and changing them could cause broken links or SEO issues, it may be better to leave them as is.
Q: How can I check if my website uses underscores in URLs?
A: You can check by navigating to your website and looking at the URLs in the address bar. Alternatively, you can use a website crawling tool to analyze the structure of your website.
Q: Can hyphens be used instead of underscores in URLs?
A: Yes, hyphens are preferred over underscores in URLs as they are seen as word separators by search engines and are easier to read and remember for users.
Q: Will changing underscores to hyphens in URLs improve SEO?
A: It can help improve SEO, but it is not a guaranteed solution. Other factors such as relevant content and quality backlinks also play a significant role in SEO.
Q: Are there any other best practices for creating SEO-friendly URLs?
A: Yes, keep URLs concise, relevant, and keyword-focused. Avoid using special characters or numbers, and make sure URLs follow a logical hierarchy.
Conclusion
In summary, while using underscores in URLs may not directly harm SEO, it is not a recommended best practice. Hyphens are a better alternative, and it is important to keep URLs concise, relevant, and user-friendly. Always keep user experience in mind when creating URLs, and make sure they are easily readable and memorable. Thank you for reading, and be sure to visit again for more helpful tips!