I never bother to use it - with regard to seo I'm only concerned with the categories.
I always use lower case and a hyphen instead of underscore for any spaces. I have read some people have found that search engines seem to prefer this but have not done any research into it personally. As to specific reasons for this, I don't know, nor did the couple who had found it to be so.
Rewriting the member list and profiles doesn't do a whole lot search engine wise. I was the one who paid Paul to implement it because I like clean urls and it looks cool: example.com/members/DR. But doing it for the help items is beneficial in terms of SEO. The help items have good content, but they are hard to spider because of the ugly urls. If you rewrite those help urls, they will get indexed.
Members list and profiles is for show, but help items is for SEO.
I have read some people have found that search engines seem to prefer this but have not done any research into it personally.
Matt Cutts said Google likes hyphens more than underscores, and he works for Google so he knows what he's talking about. Go with hyphens.
If you used mixed case people can't remember how to type in the URL, they get an error when they use the wrong case.
Hypens are better because they're treated as word separators, thus you get more keyword matches. Of course if you're already using underscores it may not be worthwhile to wait for everything to reindex.
Click the help icon to read up on the issues with profile rewriting. Don't use it if you have preexisting members with non-alphanumeric names.
scriptwiki wrote: but they are hard to spider because of the ugly urls.
I should note that I've never seen any evidence for this, even though I've seen the claim repeated as dogma forever, and I have plenty of counterevidence. If you live in 1997 then it has some validity. In the 21st century, every search engine in the world will spider any URL which doesn't contain session ids. Sometimes they'll do it a little slower a courtesy to the server if it looks dynamic. URL rewriting, however, can get keywords into your url which make the page rank better for those terms, and that is important.
I'm not sure there's an easy way to redirect. That's why this forum uses underscores still. I know if you do redirect it needs to be a 301 for SEO purposes, something like RewriteRule ^old$ new [R=301,L]
Comments on URL Rewriting: SEO Choices
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Regarding the - Rewrite member list, profiles and help items [option]- Selection in the SEO Settings
1) Could some people please comment
2) Also is there/are there specific reason(s) why using lower case is better ? thoughts ? concerns ?
Thanks in advance
DR
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Expert
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I never bother to use it - with regard to seo I'm only concerned with the categories.
I always use lower case and a hyphen instead of underscore for any spaces. I have read some people have found that search engines seem to prefer this but have not done any research into it personally. As to specific reasons for this, I don't know, nor did the couple who had found it to be so.
Member
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Rewriting the member list and profiles doesn't do a whole lot search engine wise. I was the one who paid Paul to implement it because I like clean urls and it looks cool: example.com/members/DR. But doing it for the help items is beneficial in terms of SEO. The help items have good content, but they are hard to spider because of the ugly urls. If you rewrite those help urls, they will get indexed.
Members list and profiles is for show, but help items is for SEO.
Matt Cutts said Google likes hyphens more than underscores, and he works for Google so he knows what he's talking about. Go with hyphens.
developer
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If you used mixed case people can't remember how to type in the URL, they get an error when they use the wrong case.
Hypens are better because they're treated as word separators, thus you get more keyword matches. Of course if you're already using underscores it may not be worthwhile to wait for everything to reindex.
Click the help icon to read up on the issues with profile rewriting. Don't use it if you have preexisting members with non-alphanumeric names.
but they are hard to spider because of the ugly urls.
I should note that I've never seen any evidence for this, even though I've seen the claim repeated as dogma forever, and I have plenty of counterevidence. If you live in 1997 then it has some validity. In the 21st century, every search engine in the world will spider any URL which doesn't contain session ids. Sometimes they'll do it a little slower a courtesy to the server if it looks dynamic. URL rewriting, however, can get keywords into your url which make the page rank better for those terms, and that is important.
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Thanks to all for your thoughts - there is some great information there !
DR
PS - Any suggestions on "arranging" some kind of redirect to the hyphenated vs underscore categories ? to help minimize the "disturbance effect"
Have seen some code [htaccess] on different sites - but not knowing much about this ...and wondering of specific WSN Links suggestions ..
Again .. Thanks for your thoughts
developer
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I'm not sure there's an easy way to redirect. That's why this forum uses underscores still. I know if you do redirect it needs to be a 301 for SEO purposes, something like
RewriteRule ^old$ new [R=301,L]
I'll have a go at it when I have the time.
Forum Regular
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Guess for the moment - I will stay with underscores as well - not wanting to create an even "bigger" mess ....
- but for the future ... (in a testing environment ?)
These are the articles that I have been reading .. but not sure if within them contains good advice or not ...
Thought I would pass it along:
www.askapache.com/htaccess/...o-hyphens-for-seo-url.html
www.htaccesselite.com/htacc...cores-to-dashes-vt175.html
Thanks ...
DR