Dashes v. Underscores in Image File Names

Joel Gales Sullivan

When naming an image or other type of file, choose dashes to separate keywords rather than underscores. I wrote about this in a previous blog on optimizing images in Rivista, though, frankly, I wasn't sure of the reason why this strategy was recommended. I read recently a blog from Matt Cutts on how Google regards dashes in page URLs versus underscores and suddenly the reason for using dashes became clear.

When Google sees keywords in a URL or file name, the underscore serves to link the keywords while the dash — because it's disregarded — breaks the keywords into separate entities. Therefore, given an image of Coit Tower in San Francisco, it's better to name it Coit-Tower.jpg than Coit_Tower.jpg. In order for the Coit_Tower image to show up in the search results, the user would have to enter Coit_Tower into the search field, while an image named Coit-Tower.jpg would turn up in searches for "Coit Tower."

Joel Gales Sullivan is a project manager at Godengo and an avid student of search engine optimization, especially in regard to its use with Rivista. If you have questions or comments regarding optimizing your site, please contact her at joel(at)godengo(dot)com.

Posted by Super on October 21, 2008 at 10:49 AM in Search Engine Optimization | Permalink

Add your comment:

Create an instant account, or please log in if you have an account.
Verification Question. (This is so we know you are a human and not a spam robot.)

What is 8 + 6 ?