Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Ivan Aditya on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 07/22/2013).

Which is better in terms of SEO ranking by Google, slash or dash?

Hi, it`s my first time asking question in this community. I`m just curious about using slash sign ( / ) versus dash sign ( - ) in our SEO link url.  Which one better in terms of SEO ranking by Google?

I have been bench marking with these 2 websites (Savored and Yelp) as per below:

Savored: https://savored.com/miami/shulas-steak-house/ Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/gary-danko-san-francisco

So, which one better?  Thank you :)
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Collin Davis: Hi Aditya, slash is used for showing separation of categories while dash is used to differentiate between two separate words.
  • Federico Sasso: Search engines treat both - and / as token/word separators. Nevertheless, using slashes as word separators is somewhat weird; expect users attempting to browse the "virtual" directories in the path to find categories; also, an URL with too many directories could be seen as too deep to be perceived as important in a site, both by a user's and maybe by a search engine stand point.
  • Ivan Aditya: Wow, totally fast response.  ;Any rules what's the maximum of slashes you can have in an url?
  • Federico Sasso: > Any rules what's the maximum of slashes you can have in an url?
    Not really. After all, they are valid URLs according to the specs. I said could because I remember no evidence directory dept could somehow penalize your SEO efforts; normally search engines are more sensible to "link depth". Anyway, a general rule of thumb you normally see is "no more than 3-4", but that's more for human beings usability.
  • Ivan Aditya: So, basically it's a two different purposes and will not affect the SEO?
  • Federico Sasso: I don't love absolute statements, but yes, basically yes.
    If I were you, I would go for the dash for word separation and use slash/directories only when it makes sense for categorization, as +Collin Davis ;pointed out.
  • Tony McCreath: Google does have a patent related to directories and categorising pages. So catogorising pages via directory structures may have some benefit. Probably not directly to ranking but in helping Google work out associations. 

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 07/22/2013).

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