Underscores in URLs

[kickass]

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/
The above url is the blog of Matt Cutts, who works for Google. According to him, the way the mod rewrite in phpLD is working is not doing any of us any favors. Example:

http://kickasswebdesign.com/webgeekdir/CSS/Browser_Bugs/

This will not come up in Google if someone puts in the term "Browser Bugs", but only if someone puts in the term "Browser_Bugs". If the url were rewritten like so:
http://kickasswebdesign.com/webgeekdir/CSS/Browser-Bugs/
then Google would return this url if someone entered the term "Browser Bugs" or "Bugs in Browser" or even "IE Bugs", which won't happen with the way they're written now.

There has to be a simple way to change this in the script. Can someone help? I'd also suggest this might be a suitable mod for future versions.

[David]

Good one...I'm sure this would be easy to implement. We just need to figure out where the character is being added.

[Feydakin]

While a problem, it's a shame to see google trying to rewrite the rules of programming just to please themselves.. The _ has been used for as long as I can remember to represent a [space].. Why would they decide now that they are no longer going to follow that basic rule except as an effort to make the lives of people difficult??

Just venting a bit :)

[David]

Yes, I think Matt is telling you what he "likes" but not necessarily what ranks better.

[Ap0s7le]

I'm finding quite a few references in code to the underscore.

I'll sort them out later when I get home.

-Casey

[Feydakin]

After reading his blog, and a few others, that;s sort of the impression I got Dave.. He prefers hyphens but I don't see that they make one bit of difference when it comes to urls.. As was said on another forum, if Google is pushing SERPs based on the URL over the content they have more serious issues to deal with..

[vkaryl]

?? Er.... David, Fedaykin....

You guys DO know who Matt Cutts is, right? I mean, only if you do NOT know who he is, is what you're posting making any kind of sense....

[minstrel]

Content visible to registered users only.
There's nothing new in this. It's been clear that dashes have been superior for at least a coople of years now.

this-url.com beats both this_url.com and thisurl.com

[Nobody]

I agree.

Hey guys these are facts, according to SEO.

/subdirectory-rewrite/ IS better than using_this !!

I was going to ask this sooner or later as well. Good point!

Just trying to help here.

[seothatworks]

All you need to do with PHPLD is to fill your database of categories with the correct urls. I didn't know PHPLD handles this automatically?

All I do is input for example:
this is the first category, this-is-the-first-category, etc., directly into PHPLD database.

[Nobody]

Content visible to registered users only.

Well, it does, if you don't fill in something in the designated text field in the form manually. And this is what this discussion is all about - how to change the phpLinkDirectory function that makes the _ appear automatically. We'd like some - to appear instead.

Thank you for your comments.

[yktan]

Content visible to registered users only.

Well, it does, if you don't fill in something in the designated text field in the form manually. And this is what this discussion is all about - how to change the phpLinkDirectory function that makes the _ appear automatically. We'd like some - to appear instead.

Thank you for your comments.[/quote]

Ah, you're talking about the defaulted url for categories. You can easily modify the script like thus:

Open admin\dir_categs_edit.php
Find:
Content visible to registered users only.
Replace with:
Content visible to registered users only.

And the next time the field is empty, it will default to title name with dashes.

Regards,
York Kie

[Nobody]

Ah! Much better. Thank you. Please implement this into the next release of the script for better SEO workout.