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raypasnen
Posts: 115
From: New York City & Bermuda
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_ vs. - the grudge match - 8/7/2002 12:23:27
Hi everyone. Hope this post finds you all doing well.
I have a little question about file names. Should I use _ to separate words or -? Everything I' ve ever read has suggested _ but I don' t know why. And now my host just told me that he thinks I should be using -. What gives? 
Thanks for any insights.
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erinatkins
Posts: 3072
From: Mechanicsville VA USA
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 8/7/2002 12:29:30
Raypasnen,
Spaces in file names tend to generate the most errors in document retrieval. If you need to separate words in a file name, you should use the underscore ( _ ) character.
Hope this helps.
Erin
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Gil
Posts: 7533
From: North Carolina, USA
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 8/7/2002 12:52:03
raypasnen,
That' s really a trick question. IF you feel (for some strange reason) you need a " space" use the _
But really there is no reason to instead of Some_Name use SomeName, you' ll eliminate a lot of problems before they happen.
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Gil Harvey, 1947-2004
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piquet
Posts: 530
Joined: 3/26/2002
From: Ciudad de México
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 8/7/2002 13:50:48
Nothing_more_to_add_to_that_!!!!
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raypasnen
Posts: 115
From: New York City & Bermuda
Status: offline
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 8/7/2002 14:03:44
Hmmm... OK but here' s the thing:
How do Search Engines/Indexes read page names? I don' t think some see individual words unless they are separated.? Yahoo will read a string of letters and pick out the words. I don' t think Google will. If every search engine/index used yahoo' s technique then we could just list words in the title, keyword and description meta tags instead of making them comprehensible.
My question (and I think it has been answered) is: which is better to separate words for internet use. I think we all say _. But why not -?
When registering a domain, you may use a hyphen (-) but not the underscore (_). Does that mean that the hyphen (-) would make more sense for web applications?
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Gil
Posts: 7533
From: North Carolina, USA
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 8/7/2002 16:58:27
quote:
-Ray
How do Search Engines/Indexes read page names? I don' t think some see individual words unless they are separated.? Yahoo will read a string of letters and pick out the words. I don' t think Google will.
Search engines *BTW, Yahoo is not a search engine, but a list of pages/site*, do not care about the " page name" they are looking for content. In fact a few even refuse to read the " Title" tag.
quote:
My question (and I think it has been answered) is: which is better to separate words for internet use. I think we all say _. But why not -?
Why? Short answer is: because that' s the way it is. SGML has always recognized the _ as a separator, but only recently have " some" clients recognized the - as one. HTTP (as in domain names) has allowed the - but doesn' t recognize it as a separator per say.
quote:
When registering a domain, you may use a hyphen (-) but not the underscore (_). Does that mean that the hyphen (-) would make more sense for web applications?
Well, a Unix box will read the - has something completely different than the _. And " most" search engines (Google, etc.) are built in a machine language environment like Unix or one of the Sun flavors of Unix.
The advice sticks: Use NO spaces (or separators) and you' ll avoid a lot of trouble.
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Gil Harvey, 1947-2004
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kt
Posts: 195
Joined: 11/3/2004
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 7/16/2005 15:12:10
Hi all
I was searching for an answer orf whether to use - or _ or nothing to separate words in file names and came across this post.
As search engines have obviously changed a lot since this post 3 years ago, does the same advice still stand? Is _ better than - to separate words? Do Google and other bots separate "file" from "name" if the page is www.mydomain.com/filename.htm?
Thanks, kt
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BobbyDouglas
Posts: 5470
Joined: 5/15/2003
From: Arizona
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 7/16/2005 15:29:31
I have been using - to sep the words. I did it for ease of reading. It looks very nice to have web-development/beginning-web-design/m-82551/tm.htm.
I also thought for awhile that SEs would take the words between the dashes and count them as sep words, and not a full word. In conclusion, using - won't have any less SEO effect than using _ however - looks much nicer to the end user.
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Arizona Web Design - Mr Bobs Web Design in Arizona
The Arizona Web Hosting Challenge
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Reflect
Posts: 4769
From: USA
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 7/18/2005 12:29:35
With out a doubt -. My reasoning though is different. SEs see the - as a delimiter and counts the words as separate. Now don't go too crazy. I try to keep page names to word-one.htm not word-one-this-is-the-page.htm. At some point, and I will agree to disagree on the when, SEs will see it as gaming the system.
Take care,
Brian
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raypasnen
Posts: 115
From: New York City & Bermuda
Status: offline
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RE: _ vs. - the grudge match - 7/18/2005 13:00:50
Hi all-
Wow. Renewed interest. After three years of constantly working with web design I say "-" (hyphen). Yes. You may use the underscore or upper/lower case but I think the hyphen is the most accepted separator. As stated above, don't go overboard. just a couple of words for file names though more is still acceptable but who knows for how long.
~Ray
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