Does it really matter what we use to seperate words in URLs?

 

I have an ongoing debate with a client, telling me he wants to use hyphens instead of pluses to seperate words. From what i've read Google will treat a hyphen as a seperator but couldn't really find anything on pluses. What I do know is that a plus is the equivanlent of a space in a URL, so why not use it?

simply put : don't

 

both of these characters are difficult for non-typers to enter and you may fall foul of the disability laws *

 

* not that I don't see the reason, but the allowed fines seem excessive, esp for small sites

I have always heard hyphens are better. Plus signs are reserved for special circumstances like dynamic content; I've never seen them as a substitute for a hyphen in a normal URL (assuming we're talking about "http://www.mysite.com/web+design+services.html" or something?).

 

Oh, and I know Google likes hyphens, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I have always heard hyphens are better. Plus signs are reserved for special circumstances like dynamic content; I've never seen them as a substitute for a hyphen in a normal URL (assuming we're talking about "http://www.mysite.com/web+design+services.html" or something?).

 

Oh, and I know Google likes hyphens, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Aye. Plus are special characters. Use hyphens.

Not one of you has given me a reason not to use a plus!

The plus symbol is a reserved character that has a special meaning. http://gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rfc/rfc3986.html#reserved

 

Hyphen is not reserved. http://gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rfc/rfc3986.html#unreserved

Not one of you has given me a reason not to use a plus!

 

That's weird; I thought we all did.

 

Penguin - Pluses pose accessibility problems

Expat - Pluses are used for dynamic content and also hyphens are better for SEO

TT - Pluses are special characters

Ok it's a reserved character and should percent-encoded. But it still works fine, see attached.

 

I think I will swallow my pride and change to hyphens.

 

It might work in most cases, however since it's reserved for special purposes it might not. I've not looked too hard at the matter to when it might cause problems, but since hyphens are unreserved and go for the save option so it won't suddenly backfire on me.