Keyword in URL

[neilrmessick]

I am doing URL rewriting to try and get keywords in the URL. I would think that should be huge in determining rank.

Search for "Kubota L3430 Review" in google.

http://www.compacttractorreview.com/review-Kubota-L3430_31.aspx

Google only seems to target the word "review" and ignores the rest of the keywords in the URL. Any idea why?

[dilligaf]

Are you talking about the highlighting? I've got you at 6 for Kubota L3430.

[neilrmessick]

Yea, my question was with the highlighting. There should be a fair amount of text keywords for the model. I would think that engines should be putting major weight on the URL text... or am I wrong?

[Lindsay]

Can someone answer this question? I always try to use a keyword in the file name- does it make a difference?

[dilligaf]

There's a good bit of debate on the value of the keyword in your url, hence the discussions on hyphens vs underscores vs one word. Though I do use KW's in file names my personal opininion is that it's all overated because it's far too easy too manipulate and get's spammy quickly. I'll focus on allinanchor, allintitle and allintext and leave allinurl to the hyphen vs underscore debaters.

Regarding the highlighting, I'm not sure why it isn't in this circumstance.

[murugan]

I am using hypens, but seeing underscores are in good ranking.

Please share your experiences too...

[seo_sensey]

Hyphens are the standard option according to a guy who posted somewhere and he really knew what he was sayg :D

Anyway, there isn't a big difference between those 2 characters affecting rankings ... I see a guy being ranked #1 & #2 with 2 pages of the same domain for a very competitive keyword using underscores, while all the other 8 on the first page use hyphens. So ... backlinks beat anything related to on-page SEO.