A seemingly small detail that can have implications for SEO.
What Are Underscores in URLs?
Underscores (_) are characters that you can use in URLs to separate words. For example, you might have a URL like "www.example.com/about_us". Here, the underscore is used to separate "about" and "us."
Why Are Underscores Not Recommended?
Historically, major search engines like Google treated underscores as word joiners, meaning that "about_us" would be interpreted as a single word: "aboutus." This isn't ideal because it doesn't allow search engines to recognize the individual words, potentially impacting how your page ranks for relevant terms.
Use Hyphens Instead
The recommended practice is to use hyphens (-) instead of underscores to separate words in URLs. So instead of "www.example.com/about_us," you'd use "www.example.com/about-us."
Search engines recognize hyphens as word separators, so "about-us" would be understood as two separate words: "about" and "us." This can make it easier for search engines to understand the content of your page and match it to relevant search queries.
Conclusion
While the use of underscores in URLs might not be as critical an issue today as it once was (Google's algorithms have evolved over time), many SEO experts still advise against using underscores in URLs. The consensus is that using hyphens instead of underscores can lead to more SEO-friendly URLs, allowing search engines to better interpret the content of your pages.
