URLs use underscores instead of hyphens
url_underscoresShort answer
Some indexable URLs contain underscores (/blue_widgets) rather than hyphens (/blue-widgets). Google recommends hyphens (-) rather than underscores (_) to separate words in URLs. This is a convention, not a ranking problem: change it only for new URLs, or together with 301 redirects. Do not rename existing, ranking URLs just to satisfy this note.
Why it matters
A convention Google recommends for readability; it has no meaningful ranking impact. Google's own documentation says hyphens help it identify concepts in the URL, but the effect on ranking is negligible. Renaming a URL costs a redirect and some temporary turbulence, so the advice is to apply the convention going forward.
How Glimana detects it
The rule lists up to 500 indexable 200 URLs whose path contains an underscore.
How to fix it
- Find the affected pages in Glimana. Open Issues › URLs use underscores instead of hyphens. This is a site-level check, so the single row carries the full evidence: the URLs, values or days involved. The task under Tasks shows the same list and the expected gain.
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Apply the fix on your platform.
For new content, make the slug generator use hyphens. For existing URLs, either leave them or rename with a 301 redirect from the old form:
WordPress uses hyphens by default; underscores come from manually edited slugs or imported content. Edit the slug and let the Redirection plugin (or WordPress's automatic old-slug redirect) handle the old URL.
Handles are hyphenated by default; editing a handle creates an automatic URL redirect if you tick the box.
Change the slugify function to hyphens and add a redirect map for the old URLs if you rename them.
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Publish and clear caches. Save and publish, then make sure the crawler will see the new version: WordPress — clear the page cache in your cache plugin and purge the CDN; Shopify — theme and content changes go live on save, but purge any CDN in front of the store; custom code — deploy and purge the edge cache. Check in a private window or with
curl -s https://your-domain/page | grep -i '<title\|canonical\|robots'that the live HTML has changed; Glimana reads what the server sends, not what your browser has cached. - Verify in Glimana. Open the task under Tasks and click Mark as done. The affected pages are queued for a verification crawl within a few hours, and the task closes when the listed URLs no longer contain underscores. If the check still fails, the task returns to New with a note; when it passes, the task is listed under Resolved technical issues on Impact reports. To check sooner, use Re-crawl affected pages on the issue.
How the fix is verified
Re-crawl; the task closes when the listed URLs no longer contain underscores. Dismissing the task is a reasonable choice for established URLs.