URL Structure Best Practices: Hyphens or Underscores? | Friday SEO Tip

Today’s tip is short and sweet, which is fitting because it’s about a seemingly minor detail in URL structure. Don’t be fooled, though; URLs can impact rankings in a major way. After all, when it comes to SEO, everything matters. Check out the video above to see what I mean.

In the video, I talk about a question that was posed during a recent session of Google’s SEO office hours. Someone asked, “Does it matter if one uses underscores or hyphens to separate keywords in the URL?”

The short answer? Yes.

Need an example of best practices? At the time of writing, I performed an incognito search for the keyword phrase “SEO small business packages.” The first organic result? BSM’s very own guide on SEO packages. And if you take a look at the URL, you’ll notice we used hyphens, not underscores, to separate each word.

Granted, this is just one element of hundreds that Google considered when organizing the rankings, but you can be sure it’s part of why our guide landed that coveted first spot.

You can learn more about URL structure best practices for Google here.

For today’s takeaway, just remember that everything matters when it comes to SEO. Each little tweak you make can come together in a big way.

Oh, and one more thing: Google’s March 2024 core update is still rolling out as of mid-April. So, if your rankings have been odd lately, try not to stress too much. I’ll let you know once it’s complete!