Filename question

[sidsilviu]

Alright, not a newbie, but a newbie-like question Is there a benefit to having keywords in your filename. If so, how much? For example, my page is about dogs and cats. Is it an advantage to have http://www.mydomain.com/dogs-cats.htm instead of http://www.mydomain.com/pets.htm.Also, if there is an advantage, are dashes or underscores preferable (or neither)?Thanks.Google (and other search engines) use MANY factors when determining your location in the results.This is generally believed to be one of those factors (along with content, pagerank, domain name, etc, etc.)I really don't think it makes a difference as to whether underscores or dashes are used, but I've never seen proof one way or the other in this regard.Assuming all other things are equal, having your keyword in the filename could potentially help you some, but it's not going to be worth anything without good content, page structure, etc.Axe,I understand that content is king. Just looking for those little added advantages you know?Anyone else have any thoughts one way or the other?I read an opinion...not fact...that use of dashes would allow the search engines to parse out the dash and replace it with a space....just an opinion.personally I use the dash and keywords in the url...and my pages have relevant content that reflects this naming convention. More often I will use this naming convention in the directory structure of the site and use a default index.asp file in the root of the folder. I notice more page returned in yahoo's serps with keywords in the page name.I have always used the specific file names (dogs-cats) for the pages. I have found that it does help. I wouldnt use them for the actual domain, but for the secondary pages...i would.Thanks all for your inputI was just talking on IRC to somebody about a few things last night, and this subject came up...I think it's definitely a good idea to split up your words to not have search engines misinterpret your filenames..For example.. Let's say you have a file on your site called newswords.phpNews Words right? Wrong.. This page happens to be on a Japanese Weaponry site (not really, but as an example), so splittingit up to new-swords.php, would mean there's no confusion when Google comes to read the URL.Now, it's possible Google could pick up both the phrases "news words" and "new swords" (with newswords.php), and bump you a lil higher for both, but if you're more specific, it's also possible that Google could bump you that little bit more higher for "new swords", if your page name is hyphenated (and not also being picked up on "news words").One of my clients in Ornamentshop.com. His URL gets picked up for "ornaments", "ornament", "shop", and even "hop". That of course is his company name, but for file names, I would probably just split them up, easier for the engines...possibly...easier for visitors and you...yes.great example Axe!..here's another....I have a file called telluride-condos.asp, had I created it as telluridecondos.asp...it might pick up part of the url as telluride co....which since we are in Colorado the CO would be relevant but not to this page....another bonus to using the dash could be when you trade links and the person you trade with creates your backlink using the actual page url instead of some keyphrase when creating the link....this would gurantee you keywords either way.I have a final fantasy site, and I only ever use "Final Fantasy 6" or "Final Fantasy VI" style names in the body text.however, the file names are usually ff6/ff6.phpand we do get hits when someone searches for "ff6" Are you also optimized for ff6 else where on the page or is youe search ranking only beacause of the filename?the only time ff6 ever appears is in the filename.I was pretty impressed (and surprised) when we got hits from that.