In the example labeled 1 /jasonkentmusic
Bold words are next to each other in single term* with additional word

In the example labeled 2 -jason-kent/
Bold words are separated with dash

In the example labeled 3 .jasonfinleykent.
Bold words are separated in single term*

In the example labeled 4 /Jason_Kent
Bold words are separated with underscore

In the example labeled 5 /jasonkent
Bold words are next to each other in single term*

*I am defining a single term as multiple words next to each other without any characters ( -, /, _, ?, etc.) separating the words - example jasonfinleykent is a single term.

Even though jasonfinleykent is a single term, the words searched for “Jason” and “Kent” are still bold. Anyway you place words in a url: single term, separated, dashes, underscores or anything else, the searched for words will be highlighted. Keep in mind this may not mean the search engine has parsed and identified the words in the url for ranking relevance. There is still only one good way to differentiate for parsing (7th paragraph) according to Matt Cutts. However, I am thinking Google may be able to distinguish the words in a url more than they indicate, as this website is ranking in the fifth spot for “Jason Kent” and currently there are few links pointing here. This site’s url has Jason and Kent, separated in a single term, and yet this url structure seems to be influencing rank significantly (notice the words are in the root domain but I am more interested in the fact that they are in a single term).

I looked at other factors that would affect the ranking of this site before thinking Google is parsing more than they say.

This post only applies to the Google algorithm.

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