I'm already using - as a separator in my URLs, for some reasons I need to add a second one.
According to RFC 3986 I can use ., _ and ~. I also have seen some sites using + as a separator. I'm wondering which one to use, I read many articles about pro/cons for each separator and I can't decide.
/salty-recipes/salty+spicy-recipes/salty_spicy-recipes/salty~spicy-recipesPersonally, If I needed to use an operator other than a hyphen '-' I would use an underscore because it seems cleaner and is often used for variables when writing code.
In your comments you said you're needing the extra operator to perform a search using the words in the URL. If this is the case I would probably use the plus '+' symbol. Many websites replace spaces with the plus symbol and so if you're aiming to parse the URL into separate words this may be easier.
The only other option I would suggest is using URL parameters like url.com?var1=term1&var2=term2 and using a .htaccess file to convert it to a clean, readable URL like url.com/term1/term2/.
The link below is a great article about using .htaccess files. The first point explains what I mentioned above.
I guess this is the best that love the google!
/salty-recipes
I'm always using this separator for my projects.
/salty-spicy-recipes? I don't see any need for multiple separators here. – Stephen Ostermiller♦ Oct 2 at 0:59/term1_term2-term3_term4I'm aiming to searchterm1andterm2in category 1, andterm3andterm4in category 2. I can use URL parameters, but I need a clean url, I'm also aware of duplicate content. – Raftel Oct 2 at 1:34/) or a period (.) as a separator there. – Stephen Ostermiller♦ Oct 2 at 11:00