Out of the box, Ingeniux displays page URLs as numbers with an .xml extension (e.g., 345.xml). Although, this method is short and clean, numbers aren’t real memorable. It’s much easier for site visitors to remember academics.html or news.html than 345.xml. You have some inclination where academics.html will take you when clicked, whereas 345.xml is pretty vague.

To present more human-readable URLs, Ingeniux allows us to utilize structured URLs using a hyphen or an underscore as a separator and specify .htm or .html as an extension. So which is better, hyphens or underscores? For me it has always come down to usability, something we touch on during each CMS training. It is much easier to read a Web address done in hyphens than underscores, especially when including URLs in print. If URLs appear as underlined text, the underscores are often harder to read.

When it comes down to it, search engines treat both underscores and hyphens differently. Google for example treats hyphens as separators or dividers while underscores are not treated as such as shown below.

Underscores vs. Hyphens

Example 1: www.anselm.edu/my_web_page.html
Example 2: www.anselm.edu/my-web-page.html

How Google reads these URLs.

Example 1: mywebpage
Example 2: my web page

Given the Web’s capacity to evolve, this could easy change at any time. But based on our current understanding, we will be utilizing hyphens as separators for the redesigned site for improved search engine optimization (SEO) and readability.

Sites Referencing the use of Underscores vs. Hyphens

• http://www.tunnel7.com/blog/article/hyphens-or-underscores
• http://pixelposition.com/hyphens-underscores
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SFVfDIS5k (Google software engineer Matt Cutts)

So one of the priorities of the redesign project was to improve site search. So after looking at several different options, we purchased a Google Mini search appliance, which arrived in the mail this week from Google.

The Google Mini will provide us with everything we currently get with Google search (including a familiar interface), but will provide us with more control over site search as well as more detailed reporting as noted below.

• Additional Reporting
  More detailed reports on what content the Mini’s crawler has indexed and will index, as well as errors that the Mini found when crawling our site. Also, more detailed reports on what visitors are searching for on our site.
• Site Indexing
  We can specify which pages or sections of our site are crawled and indexed to show up in search results or not indexed. We can also specify the frequency at which pages on our site are crawled.
• Google Analytics Integration
  Better understand how visitors are using our public Web site and improve the effectiveness of our search results.
• Keyword
  Allows us to specify keywords that return specific results when someone searches our site. For example, if someone searches for Dining on our site, we can associate that keyword with Dining Services and the URL for their site (rather than getting a top search result pointing to an academic paper on how to eat healthy when dining out). So whenever someone searches for Dining the link will appear at the top of the search no matter where it would normally appear in the result set.
• Synonyms
  Synonyms will give alternate terms for your search. For example, when a visitor searches for “Academic Minors” we can add suggestions, e.g., “Academic Certificates,” to the result set.
• Document Types
  The Google Mini, like our current Google search, will search for multiple document types and display the document types in the results. The Mini can search more than 220 file types, including html, aspx, php, pdf, office documents, etc.

Since 2002, the college has been using Google’s free custom search engine (formerly Google University Search). It’s used by many colleges and universities since it’s free and search results can be served up without displaying ads. However, since it’s free, it lacks a lot of the more robust features sought by institutions. Features you typically find with a paid search engine, like enhanced reporting, keywords, synonyms, setting site crawl frequency, etc.

We will continue to use Google Custom Search, but only as a back up to our Google Mini appliance should it go down (knock on wood). Once the Mini is installed, we’ll then need to configure the Mini to output results within our new CMS templates, which is something we will be working on in early December.