Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does the use of an underscore in filenames adversely affect SEO
-
We have had a page which until recently was ranked first or second by Google UK and also worldwide for the term "Snowbee". It is now no longer in the top 50.
I ran a page optimization report on the url and had a very good score. The only criticism was that I had used an atypical character in the url. The only unusual character was an underscore "_" We use the underscore in most file names without apparent problems with search engines. In fact they are automatically created in html files by our ecommerce software, and other pages do not seem to have been so adversely affected.
Should we discontinue this practice? It will be difficult but I'm sure we can overcome this if this is the reason why Google has marked us down.
I attach images of the SEO Report pages
-
Thanks Charles.
The link was useful.
-
Underscores are not good to use in URLs as search engines do not treat it as a space or delimiter. So Snow_Bee would be considered Snowbee. I believe search engines have gotten better at figuring out when a word like this should be two words, but the best practice for this is to use hyphens (e.g. Snow-Bee).
Here is a video from Matt Cutts about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AQcSFsQyct8
This wouldn't cause you to drop off though especially if you ranked previously. Is it just for this one term or is it for multiple terms? I would be looking at link backgrounds to be sure there weren't any spammy links getting devalued that maybe didn't get caught before, or perhaps review the content of the page to see if it might have gotten caught by the penguin anti-spamminess updates.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is using REACT SEO friendly?
Hi Guys Is REACT SEO friendly? Has anyone used REACT and what was the results? Or do you recommend something else that is better suited for SEO? Many thanks for your help in advance. Cheers Martin
Algorithm Updates | | martin19700 -
Having 2 domains with same name - Impact on SEO
Hi AllAs we still dwindle with the rankings not coming in line with the efforts.I have a question: We have 2 websites 1. http://www.example.com/ (which lost traffic and rank in Jan 2013). So we assumed that it was due to some penguin penalty. So we worked on disavow extra but nothing actually helped.Though there was no manual penalty mentioned in the GWT. Frustrated with this we thought of having another website 6 months back: 2. https://example.org/ - we did all the right things and by the book. But we are not seeing ranking here too. We did backlink analysis on all competitors and worked on only quality links they had. So all our links are highly highly relevant. But still the ranks are not moving beyond third page...in fact they moved to 6-7 page in last 2-3 days. Please suggest .. 1. is it due to same name of domain (our brand name) causing the issue. If yes should we go for 302 or 301 redirect to save ourselves from any penalty that our last website may have got. We can not leave that name unattended as our cataloges etc have that website mentioned. i will expect a scientific reply here not gut feeling please. 2. Is it to do with .org domain extension that it should not be with commercial organizations like us Kindly reply at the earliest Regards Aman
Algorithm Updates | | Aman_1230 -
How Additional Characters and Numbers in URL affect SEO
Hi fellow SEOmozers, I noticed that a lot of websites have additional characters and words at the end of the URL in addition keyword optimized URL. Mostly for E-Commerce sites For example: www.yoursite.com/category/keyword?id=12345&Keyword--Category--cm_jdkfls_dklj or wwww.yoursite.com/category/keyword#83939=-37292 My question is how does the additional characters or parameters(not necessarily tracking parameters) affect SEO? Does it matter if i have additional keywords in the additional stuff in the URL (1st url example)? If you can provide more information, that would be helpful. Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | TommyTan0 -
How to use MOZ to improve my website
Hi, I am new for MOZ, have no idea how to improve my website with the function of MOZ, can anyone share their experience for using MOZ service. the more detail the better! Thanks a lot in advance! John Thanks for helps for everyone, it took me some time to read each answer, and also spend few days to study MOZ. My initial conclusion is the function of MOZ is to promote the idea of SEO, but not provide any specific SEO service for specific website except for some tools and report. So I am missing or misunderstanding MOZ's service, it will be always welcome to help me out by correcting my opinion. Anyway, thanks again for all the time you've given to me, and good to you all! -John.
Algorithm Updates | | Steplead1 -
Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice
Greetings, Im a new SEO and really knew nothing until signing up to SEOMoz. After reading the SEO101 and gathering as much information in a short period of time things started to become a little clearer. So I started my first campaign used my new SEO knowledge and input all of my meta information. Then I waited a few days to see what happened with my search result. We had never ranked for a single keyword before mind you. So a couple/few of days go by and I started punching in my keywords and looking through the pages. There I was page three. I was SO happy. I read the entire SEO101 again, realized a little more about what I had to do. So I started changing everything up, adding pictures, I found out what a IMG ALT Attributes were in the HTML editor, bolded text and all the other things I missed the first time around. Three days go by and I move up again. I start to notice my traffic is increasing and I am actually getting organic hits through search traffic. This has never happened before. I am over the moon. But I realize that I have my main focus keyword as the second key word in my title tag. So I switch the two words around, wait a few more days. Here's why I ask my question. The original title tag was still showing up and I was on the first page for both keywords, and I could see both title tags when searching for either keyword. So; Is changing your meta titles frequently good SEO Practice ? Warmest regards, Michael S&M Warning: adult site, NSFW
Algorithm Updates | | Sexandmetal0 -
Hyphens vs Underscores
I am optimizing a site which uses underscores rather than hyphens as word separators (such_as_this.php vs. such-as-this.php). Most of these pages have been around since 2007, and I am hesitant to just redirect to a new page because I am worried it will cause the rankings to slip. Would you recommend changing the file names to be in hyphenated format and place 301 redirects on the pages with underscores, or stick with the existing pages? Is there anything else that would work better? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BluespaceCreative1 -
Is using WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) ok for On-Page SEO?
Hi Mozzers, I'm investigating multilingual site setup and translating content for a small website for 15-20 pages and came accross WPML (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) which looks like it could help, but I am curious as to whether it has any major international SEO limitations before trialing/buying. It seems to allow the option to automatically setup language folder structures as www.domain.com/it/ or www.domain.com/es/ etc which is great and seems to offer easy way of linking out to translators (for extra fee), which could be convenient. However what about the on-page optimization - url names, title tags and other onpage elements - I wonder if anyone has any experiences with using this plugin or any alternatives for it. Hoping for your valued advice!
Algorithm Updates | | emerald0 -
"Revisit-after" Metatag = Why use it?
Hi Mozfans, Just been thinking about the robots revisit metatag, all pages on my website (200+ pages) have the following tag on them; name="revisit-after" content="7 days" /> I'm wondering what is the purpose of the tag? Surely isn't it best to allow robots (such as Googlebot or Bingbot) to crawl your site as often as possible so the index and rankings get updated as quickly as possible? Thanks in advance everyone! Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshSEO20110
