Underscores or hyphens

You have to understand why, the whole reasoning.
The _ may look look like one term.

But please notice the warning on dashes as well.

Dashes are what I use all the time. I never run my words
together, unless they are unique words that one would
never run together. In other words, if you want to
say "to pass" it is much better to put "to-pass" rather
than "topass."

So, the warning for underlines I believe is the same for
not using dashes. If something can be construed as the
wrong word, one word, or a mumble of words, better to
use dashes to separate and define exactly what you want.

Also Matt Cutts (and google) are VERY big on a visitor
experience. What does a visitor think to_pass would
mean? If a visitor has to guess, so will google. Worse,
google may not guess.

Thanks for sharing it!

That's a pretty good Matt Cutts post and I can't imagine why
people do not read Matt Cutts blog, and the google webmaster
blog. Ahh...but then the WF in this section would be dull.

I take that back. A lot of people don't believe Matt Cutts or
google, regardless. There's no way they can be perfect, but
I'll settle for 99% overall spot on info.

Paul

Regardless of what Matt says or what we think Google wants ... why have a URL ... you want people to eventually click on it for some reason, no?

Ever notice how an URL with an underscore character bends right in to the standard HTML underline for a URL? Why go through the expense of buying a URL, building something on it, intentionally making it hard for users to reach?

+1

I think that google is reading both very well! Although I was making some searches when I read this thread, and I saw that most are using dashes, if not all!

I think that I'm going to make test with this to see which ranks better, and I have some ideas on how to do this, because it's rather interesting.

Maybe I should even test it x3 like:

1. Keyword1_keyword_2_keyword3
2. Keyword1-keyword-2_keyword3
3. Keyword1keyword2_keyword3

Note what I said in my OP...

Darn, I have been using underscores! Should I change my pages? Then I read the comments below that five year old post. Are underscores okay, what is the word on this?

Then people comment about this and that without reading the comments. My point is, whatever Matt said five years ago, does it still apply? The comments seems to indicate that it does NOT. And I was hoping for input from the Warrior community.

Again, I am concerned about having used underscores... should I change them or not.

I use dashes but there is little difference in terms of SEO.

Google can read your keywords smashed together, with hyphens or underscores.

It is more about how it looks to you. In the url, the underscore seems to disappear which can make it more readible but can also make people think they are spaces if coping the link by hand.