SEO Project #1 – Don’t Use Underscores In Your File Names – Use Hyphens – Update #3

Previous Post for this Project

I made a mistake when I named the files for my site. For the previous examples, I've been using a site about plasma televisions, so lets just stick with that.

If the keyword I was targeting was "plasma televisions" then I would name the page "plasma_televisions.html". Here is the problem. I found out yesterday, most search engines don't recognize the underscore as a split between two words. Most search engines recognize it as a character and not a separator.

The only way to split two words in a file name is by using a hyphen. The correct way to name a page about "plasma televsions" would be "plasma-televisions.html".

Most SEO experts will tell you there isn't a lot of weight given to file names. But in my case, I can't afford to pass anything up. I'll take all the weight I can get no matter how small. I also think MSN may give more weight to file names than other search engines. I usually find the search results from MSN cluttered with file names that contain the keywords I searched for.

Fixing this problem isn't as easy as just renaming the pages. My site has already been indexed and I already have back links I don't want to loose. Correcting my problem will require three steps.

1. First, I have to make sure anyone that visits my old page "plasma_televisions.html" will automatically be redirected to the new version "plasma-televisions.html". I can accomplish this by creating a 301 redirect using my .htaccess file. Here is the format for redirecting files with your .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On

Redirect 301 /plasma_televisons.html http://www.mysite/plasma-televisions.html

Redirect 301 /old_file.html http://www.mysite/new-file.html

2. Second, I need to rename all the page and upload them to my server.

3. Last of all, I need to update the site maps.

Posted by: Brent Crouch on 06 May, 2008No Comments »