What are hyphens in the URL?
- The default URL structure should use hyphens (” – “). For example:
Good: http://yoursite.com/miami-seo-professionals/Bad: http://yoursite.com/miami_seo_professionals/Worse: http://yoursite.com/miami,seo,professionals/
Why do hyphens matter?
- Using _ or , as your URL structure causes search engines to read URL strings wrong.
- Search engines read – as spaces. Using them ensures your content will be read the right way.
How can I check my URLs?
- In Screaming Frog, run a crawl of your website.
- Set the tab to “URI”.
- In the search bar, enter “_”.
- Filter the results to see if your URLs contain underscores.
NOTE: you can also export your crawl to Excel for better filtering and analysis.