URL: Underscores

URLs with underscores, which are not always seen as word separators by search engines.

How to Analyse in the SEO Spider

View URLs with this issue in the URL tab and ‘Underscores’ filter, and export all URLs using the ‘Export’ button. Use the lower ‘Inlinks’ tab to view pages that link to them.

What Triggers This Issue

This issue is triggered when a URL contains underscores (_).

Search engines might not recognise underscores as word separators, potentially affecting their interpretation and indexing of the URL’s components.

For example:

https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/frogs_legs/

How To Fix

Ideally hyphens should be used as word separators, rather than underscores.

However, changing URLs is a big decision, and often it’s not worth changing them for SEO purposes alone.

If URLs are changed, then appropriate 301 redirects must be implemented.