Help needed on URL structures

[nick_pageone]

I am busy structuring URL's for a client and an issue i have come across is as follows:

i have a URL that is a long one, we cant remove words in it so the question is which one is better structurally:

root/courses/businessmanagementandadministration.aspx

or

root/courses/business-management-and-administration.aspx

​please help.

[CommT]

Hi Nicholas,

Option 2 is better because the hyphens actually separate words, and so robots (like Googlebot) read them as individual words rather than alloneword.

Matt Cutts video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQcSFsQyct8 on underscores vs. hyphens (not quite your question, but it appears that underscores are 'read' by Google in the same way as your first example.

All the best,

Amelia