Are plusses a good second character to use for spaces in URLs for SEO when dashes are already in use?

Question

I was wondering if the following is good for SEO. I have a webshop with categories and products. Products can contain - themselves.

For example, one of the URLs would be:

http://SITE/products/CATEGORY/this+is+something+1-layer

Where the product name is "This is something 1-layer"

Now, I understand it's better to use - as space replacement, but since my product names can contain a - I was wondering if just using + would be good.

If not, what would be a better way to display it?

Answer 1

The plus character would be a fine choice for a second separator (or technically third since you also have slashes). Google treats both pluses and dashes as word separators in URLs, so words will get parsed and ranked just fine.

Some sites like this one get around the problem by using a numeric ID in the URL and using dashes in place of dashes and spaces: /8738-this-is-something-1-layer. This has a couple advantages:

• The URL works even when the URL has been truncated by an email client or CMS (as long as the ID is near the front).
• When the product name changes, the URL can be redirected without keeping a record of old product names.
• URLs look more consistent.

Answer 2

You should stick with a more traditional underscore: http://SITE/products/CATEGORY/this_is_something_1-layer