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Use hyphens (-) between words in new, descriptive URL paths. Google Search Central recommends hyphens because they help people and search systems identify separate concepts. Underscores (_) are valid URI characters, so an existing underscore URL can continue to work. Change stable URLs only during a planned migration, with redirects or canonical signals that identify the preferred address.
Hyphens are the best default for new URLs
A URL slug is part of your site’s information architecture, not just a string that a browser happens to accept. For a new page, write a short, descriptive, lowercase path and separate distinct words with hyphens. Examples include /summer-clothing/ and /color-profile/dark-grey/. The words remain visible when a link is copied, read aloud, printed or inspected in search results.
Google Search Central states: “Specifically, we recommend using hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) to separate words in your URLs, as it helps users and search engines better identify concepts in the URL.” The recommendation is about recognition and clarity; it is not a claim that underscores violate URL syntax.
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What the URL standards allow
Both characters are permitted
RFC 3986, the IETF specification for URI generic syntax, lists both the hyphen and underscore in the unreserved character set. A web server, browser and crawler can therefore receive either character as part of a path. Syntax permission answers “Can this URL exist?” It does not answer “Which spelling makes the words easiest to recognize?”
Why Google favors hyphens
Google explains that underscores are discouraged for historical reasons: programmers commonly use underscores inside names for concepts intended to stay together. In a path, a hyphen gives a clearer visual boundary between separate words. Google’s guidance is a practical interpretation recommendation, not a published penalty for every underscore URL.
No authoritative source provides a guaranteed ranking lift, percentage improvement or other numeric benefit from changing underscores to hyphens. Treat the recommendation as a URL-design standard for clarity rather than as a promise of a measurable traffic increase.
Hyphens and underscores compared
| Decision factor | Hyphen (-) |
Underscore (_) |
|---|---|---|
| URI syntax | Permitted as an unreserved character under RFC 3986. | Permitted as an unreserved character under RFC 3986. |
| Search word recognition | Google recommends it to separate words and identify concepts. | Technically usable, but Google discourages it as a separator for historical word-boundary reasons. |
| Human readability | Usually remains visible as a clear break in copied, printed or displayed links. | Can be harder to distinguish from an underline or nearby characters in some displays. |
| New URL policy | Preferred default for separate words in descriptive paths. | Use only when an established routing convention or a deliberate technical requirement calls for it. |
| Existing URL risk | Changing to it requires redirects, canonical handling, link updates and testing. | Can remain in place if stable and correctly served; it is not automatically a problem. |
| Migration value | Usually low when punctuation is the only reason for a change; higher when combined with an information-architecture redesign. | Keeping it avoids avoidable URL changes and the associated broken-link risk. |
How to design a good URL slug
Describe the page, not the publishing process
Choose words that tell a visitor what content is at the destination. A slug such as /color-profile/dark-grey/ communicates both the subject and the specific item. Avoid opaque database IDs when a stable descriptive term is available. Keep the path focused on the page’s topic rather than on an internal workflow, author name or temporary campaign label.
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Use lowercase consistently
Google Search treats /APPLE and /apple as distinct URLs. If your server treats uppercase and lowercase paths as equivalent, standardize one form—normally lowercase—and make every internal link use it. A consistent case policy prevents two addresses from representing one page and makes redirects, canonical tags, analytics and debugging easier to manage.
Separate words; do not concatenate them
Hyphens should replace spaces between separate words. Do not remove all punctuation and turn /summer-clothing/ into /summerclothing/ merely to shorten the string. Concatenation hides word boundaries for people and automated systems. Conversely, do not insert a separator inside a term that is intentionally one concept.
Keep paths concise but meaningful
A short path is easier to copy and less likely to change when the page is edited. “Short” does not mean deleting the words needed to distinguish one resource from another. A category and item hierarchy can be useful when it reflects the site’s structure; extra folders that add no meaning are unnecessary maintenance.
Write for the audience’s language
Use the language your intended visitors use in navigation and searches, including an appropriate local spelling when the site serves a defined market. For regional sites, select a consistent country-domain or locale-subdirectory structure rather than mixing several patterns from page to page. The separator rule remains the same: use hyphens between words in each language’s path.
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Remove parameters that do not change content
Parameters are appropriate when they alter the resource, such as a genuine filter or pagination state. Tracking, session and other incidental parameters can create many addresses for the same content. Trim unnecessary parameters where possible, and make sure the clean URL is the address you publish, link to and expose in your sitemap.
Should you change existing underscore URLs?
Usually, no—not solely because the path contains underscores. An established URL may be embedded in other sites, bookmarks, emails, print material and internal systems. Changing it introduces opportunities for missed redirects, lost links, duplicate indexing and incorrect analytics. The available guidance does not establish a guaranteed ranking improvement that offsets those risks.
Consider a change when it is part of a broader, approved migration: a new information architecture, a domain or protocol move, a platform replacement, a language-structure redesign or a consolidation of duplicate pages. In that situation, standardizing new paths on hyphens can make sense because the URL already has to change for another reason.
Decision checklist for a legacy path
- Keep it when the underscore URL is stable, descriptive, indexed and supported by your current routing.
- Change it only when there is a separate information-architecture or technical reason with a defined owner, schedule and rollback plan.
- Inventory dependencies before changing: internal links, XML sitemaps, hreflang references, structured-data URLs, feeds, email templates, APIs, documentation and external links you control.
- Measure the whole migration rather than attributing any later traffic movement to punctuation alone. Record crawl errors, redirected requests, indexed URLs and organic performance before and after the move.
How to migrate from underscores to hyphens safely
A separator change creates a new URL. Treat it as a URL migration even if the page content is unchanged.
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- Define one preferred address per resource. Map every old underscore path to its intended lowercase, hyphenated destination. Resolve conflicting paths before publishing redirects.
- Export and review the old URL inventory. Include pages in search indexes, analytics, server logs, sitemaps, feeds, mobile or alternate templates, and important external references. Do not rely on a crawl of only the current navigation.
- Publish permanent server-side redirects. Send each old address directly to its matching new address with a permanent redirect. Avoid chains such as old URL → intermediate URL → final URL, and avoid sending unrelated pages to the home page.
- Update first-party references. Replace old links in navigation, content, canonical elements, hreflang annotations, structured data, XML sitemaps, RSS feeds and campaign materials. The preferred URL should appear consistently everywhere your site controls.
- Canonicalize duplicate variants. If multiple addresses can still display the same resource, use a canonical signal and redirects where appropriate so the preferred URL is unambiguous and link signals can consolidate.
- Test status codes and content. Request representative old and new paths, uppercase variants and parameter variants. Confirm that old paths redirect once, new paths return the intended content, and genuine missing pages return an appropriate not-found response.
- Monitor after release. Watch server logs, crawl reports, index coverage, redirect volume, internal-link errors and organic landing pages. Keep redirects for as long as visitors and crawlers can reasonably encounter the old addresses.
Redirects and canonical signals solve different problems. A redirect tells a requester to use another address; a canonical signal identifies the preferred address among accessible duplicates. Use the mechanism that matches the situation, and do not assume a canonical element repairs a broken old URL that should redirect.
Case, trailing slashes and routing consistency
Separators are only one part of URL normalization. Decide whether your site uses a trailing slash for directory-like paths, such as /summer-clothing/, or omits it, such as /summer-clothing. Whichever convention you choose, link to one form and redirect the alternate if both can be requested. The same principle applies to a www versus non-www host and to HTTP versus HTTPS, although those choices are separate from hyphen and underscore selection.
Check your framework and web server before assuming case-insensitive behavior. Some systems map uppercase and lowercase to the same file, while others route them separately. Google Search’s treatment remains case-sensitive, so a server that silently serves identical content for both forms can still expose duplicate URLs to crawlers.
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Parameters, encoding and readable paths
Use parameters only for meaningful variants
A parameter that changes sorting, filtering, pagination or another user-visible state may be part of a legitimate URL. A random session identifier or analytics marker generally does not describe the resource. Prefer a clean, shareable URL for the canonical page, and configure your publishing and analytics systems so unnecessary parameters are not copied into every internal link.
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Encode characters correctly
Spaces are not written literally in a conventional path; systems encode them, often as %20. Using hyphens from the start avoids that visual noise and makes the slug predictable. Preserve required non-ASCII characters according to your platform’s URL rules, and test that links survive copying, redirects and decoding in the browsers and tools your audience uses.
Do not confuse a slug with a filename
A path can describe a resource even when no physical file exists. Avoid adding extensions, dates or implementation details unless they are part of a durable public convention. A content-management-system change should not force every public URL to expose a new internal technology.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
- Changing every underscore immediately: This creates a large migration for an unproven benefit. Keep stable paths or combine the change with a justified redesign.
- Creating both versions without a policy: If
/dark_grey/and/dark-grey/both return 200 responses, choose one preferred URL and redirect or canonicalize the other. - Using mixed case: Pick lowercase, update internal links and redirect case variants when your server permits them.
- Leaving redirect chains: Map each legacy address directly to its final destination and remove obsolete intermediate rules.
- Redirecting deleted pages to unrelated content: Preserve relevance. A permanently removed page should not be disguised as an equivalent page when no equivalent exists.
- Adding needless query strings: Keep only parameters that change the page and publish the clean canonical address.
- Writing unreadable slugs: Do not stack IDs, dates, stopwords and internal labels when a concise description would identify the page.
- Assuming punctuation determines rankings: Hyphens improve the recommended clarity of new paths, but relevance, useful content, links, crawling and many other signals are not replaced by a separator choice.
A practical URL policy for a new site
- Set a documented lowercase convention and decide on trailing-slash and host rules.
- Use short descriptive paths in the audience’s language.
- Separate words with hyphens; reserve underscores for cases where an existing technical convention genuinely requires them.
- Keep only content-changing parameters and define how filtered or paginated URLs are represented.
- Generate internal links, canonical elements, hreflang references, structured data and sitemaps from the same normalized URL function.
- Before launch, test representative paths with spaces, accents, uppercase letters, duplicate slashes, parameters and missing resources.
- Record the policy so future editors do not introduce a second pattern that later requires migration.
What Google’s guidance does—and does not—mean
The Google Search Central URL Structure Best Practices page recommends hyphens for word separation and also advises descriptive, readable URLs. Its SEO Starter Guide provides broader guidance on making pages understandable to users and search engines. Neither source says that every underscore URL is penalized or that replacing separators alone guarantees higher rankings.
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The most defensible interpretation is therefore straightforward: choose hyphens for clarity when you control a new URL; preserve a functioning legacy URL unless the value of a wider migration outweighs its operational risk. Apply redirects and canonicalization whenever more than one address can represent the same resource.
Final recommendation
For a new slug, use lowercase words joined by hyphens, keep the path descriptive and concise, and remove parameters that do not change the content. Underscores remain legal and can stay in established URLs. If you migrate, do it as a complete URL project—with a mapping, permanent redirects, updated references, canonical signals and post-launch monitoring—not as a cosmetic punctuation swap.
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