Replacing "_" with "-" in url, results in new url?

[gerardoH]

We ran SEOmoz's "On-Page Optimization" tool on a url which contains the character "_".

According to the tool:

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"Characters which are less commonly used in URLs may cause problems with accessibility, interpretation and ranking in search engines. It is considered a best practice to stick to standard URL structures to avoid potential problems."

"Rewrite the URL to contain only standard characters."

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Therefore we will rewrite the url, replacing "_" with "-".

Will search engines consider the "-" url a different one? Do we need to 301 the old url to the new one?

Thanks for your help!

[MRCSearch]

Well this is an easy one.

_Will search engines consider the "-" url a different one? _Yes.

Do we need to 301 the old url to the new one? Yes.

[Catalyste]

As stated before, the answer is Yes. Should you do it ? I would answer no.

You should do it for new content, but do move all you're content to other URL and 301 just for this. This would no do too much good.

[gerardoH]

FYI, based on the information provided by the SEOmoz tool we will revamp the page (tags, look, content), therefore it'll be a "new page".

[YNWA]

Yes it will. Had to re-write a few items myself and any little change will make a new URL.

301 it is best.

[legalseo]

To throw in my 2 cents, the benefit in rewriting the URL (and making a 301) comes from Google's ability to then clearly recognize the keywords that you're using within it (assuming that you're synching your on page KWs). Google views hot_keyword_landing_page.html as hotkeywordlandingpage.html -  Matt Cutts on underscores vs. dashes in URLs. The downside is having to keep the 301 in place if the page has IBLs.

[Bucky]

Why not use rel canonical? I would prefer that to a 301 (my 2nd choice)

[loopyal]

One reason to change all URLs from _ to - is conformity.

If you have some that are _ and some that are -

the question is how will you remember which one to use, for a particular page?

For that reason, I would convert them all.

As for using a canonical tag, I don't know, you'd need to know what google and otehr search engines do with that information, if anything. I would also worry about what they will do with it in the future, because these things are liable to change.

If it was me, I would change them all and redirect the stragglers.