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What's considered proper _ or - in URLs? RRS feed

  • Question

  • Brett in playing around the last month it seems that these two aren't being treated equally by the engines and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the matter?  When separating URL's should be be using the - , _ or another divider?  The reason I ask is I am beginning to think the delay in indexing from your engine may be the divider.  By mistake we switched when doing some new items and used the - ---->  Norwood and all pages drilled under that using the divider - even those with plain text matching titles etc ---> custom koozies are still not showing even by searching with the site: ending.

    All I could find when searching was url shortening services which really has no application.  I've always assumed they were treated equally and I'm just wondering if that is true with Live?  I've read and heard that using the + symbol can work as well.  Just curious if they are all treated equally?

    Also, do we have to use the sitemap pinging service when we do an update or can we use the submit feature within the live tools?  That's a little unclear on which one to use/both, only the tool or only the ping.

    Lastly, I've noticed some of the sitemap tools end up creating a lower and upper case version of a url even though we've specified upper case...in the examples above even though the pages are in caps the sitemap tool pulls both? 

    Tha
    PromoManagers Promotional Items
    Sunday, April 12, 2009 3:41 AM

Answers

  • Hi Promo,


    Sorry, I've been off for the past few days. I did get confirmation that a dash is preferable to underscore for us. In regards to the IP...If you are seeing a lot of weird referrals over the past couple days, it is probably us. Please accept my apology. We are working to fix the issue ASAP.
    Program Manager, Live Search Webmaster Tools
    • Marked as answer by Brett Yount Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:59 PM
    Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:59 PM

All replies

  • I'll look into this, but I believe the dash is preferable to the underscore. In regards to the sitemaps, you can use either the ping service or you can submit to our tools, but we can only hold one sitemap at a time currently. If you have multiple sitemaps, I suggest submitting a sitemap index file.

     Last, are these duplicate URLs showing in the index or is it just the tools?  Either way, could you send me a few URLs to the lswmc@microsoft.com address so I can investigate?

    Brett
    Program Manager, Live Search Webmaster Tools
    Wednesday, April 15, 2009 5:59 PM
  • Brett, just checking back in.  I'm going to guess you are right based on at least Live search. Also of note is that a couple of weeks in only one of the two pages are indexed despite an updated sitemap.  Vantage Polos went up a few weeks prior and is likewise still not indexed which is odd as it's linked off the main page. 

    I've got something else weird that only pertains to Microsoft that I'll include in the email.  I'm trying to figure out of an IP that shows up on the site portending to be from you is actually from you.  The consensus from ARIN is no.
    PromoManagers Promotional Items
    Monday, April 20, 2009 2:45 AM
  • Hi Promo,


    Sorry, I've been off for the past few days. I did get confirmation that a dash is preferable to underscore for us. In regards to the IP...If you are seeing a lot of weird referrals over the past couple days, it is probably us. Please accept my apology. We are working to fix the issue ASAP.
    Program Manager, Live Search Webmaster Tools
    • Marked as answer by Brett Yount Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:59 PM
    Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:59 PM