Is an _ still considered a space by google?
 

I always thought the underscore was considered to be a space in a file name by SEs. Like This_Sucks would be seen as This Sucks. But when doing a search on google for _ it comes up with results. Does that mean its not ignored. On the flip if you search for - it comes up with nothing so does that denote a space now? I am just curious. Thanks.

Of course the Spider is decoding for natural language in URL strings, and resolving for the individual words. It is also, however, operating on a "string match" basis, where any such occasions in the index will be offered in results.

My take is _ (since it returns actual results) is NOT good to have in urls/pagenames but - is ok since - does not return any results on a google search.

So basically it can count for both a character and a space. I am just double checking I am still safe using underscores for file names.

That presumes there is a dilutive effect when both the component words and the string are indexed for a page. I have never encountered any such effect. However, when the words are part_of_a_sentence, for example, the URL can be seen to convey meaning unto the page, beyond the literal words it contains.

For example, if I named a file a_plague_o_both_your_Houses.html, I wouldn't have to tell the spider this page has something to do with Shakespeare -- :winkwink:

I have heard SEOs say both, I've been using dashes. I've got no evidence one is better than the other.

In fact (though I'm sure this isn't "better"), search for WordsRanTogether, and it matches spaced out versions.. it's getting more advanced

in general stick to -'s in file names.

however google is able to pull works from anything.

I really don't know, but I assume SE count is as a space because, for example, coming from google images I get alot of hits for Raven Riley, even though the image is named Raven_Riley_thumb.jpg


Oh, and wordpress generates post titles with - & all those-pages-look-like-this, and those get indexed fine.

So in other words it doesn't matter one way or the other if you have a _ or a -.

Thanks good read.

i usually just leave it out and use spaces in the anchor text.