Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?

[StoryScout]

Hi guys,

I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out.

Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings?

Thanks!

[Linda-Vassily]

Hyphens are definitely a good idea. They make the URL easier to read and more user-friendly. (See more about it from Webmaster Tools Help here.)

"Consider using punctuation in your URLs. The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html. We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs."

[DonnaDuncan]

Agree with what LindaLV has said, but want to be sure you're not talking about a domain name. Hyphens used when referencing a file or folder name is good. Hyphens in a domain name is less than ideal.

So, for example,

http://www.domainname.com/folder-name/file-name.html is good,

http://www.domain-name.com/foldername/filename.html is not so good.

Domain names should be short, memorable, preferably branded, and use no special characters.

[Linda-Vassily]

Yes, no hyphens in the domain name. Thanks for clarifying, Donna.

[MoosaHemani]

Just to be clear, here we are talking about URLs and not the domain name because when it comes to domain name my personal advice is not to go fir hyphens as this is not a common practice plus its usually a practice of spammers to use shady domain names.

As far as URLs are concern it’s a wonderful idea as Lina said they are better than underscores.

Hope this helps!