URL Structure - forward slashes, hyphen separated, query paramters
-
I am having difficulty evaluating pros and cons of various URL structures with respect to SEO benefits. So I can have the following
1. /for-sale-in-<city>-<someothertext>-<uniqueid>.php
So in this case a term like 'for sale in San Francisco' is directly part of the URL. </uniqueid></someothertext></city>2. /for-sale/<city>/<someothertext>uniqueId
Here 'for sale in San Francisco' is not so direct in the URL, so I think. Also I 'heard' that forward slash URLs are somehow considered as being 'lower down' in the directory structure. </someothertext></city>3. /for-sale/<city>/<someothertext>/?pid=uniqueId</someothertext></city>
someOtherText contains keywords we are targeting.
1. Is there a preference of one format over the other?
2. Does it even matter?
3. someOtherText - does it makes sense to put keywords in the URL for just SEO purposes? I do not per se need someOtherText for functionality.
-
When Ever I create URLs I only care about few things that are as follows!
- The URL should not contain any special characters so anything that contain “?” “&” or similar stuff should not be your choice!
- I prefer to add the keywords in it but having a complete key phrases in not necessary!
- What I really prefer is that the keyword length should be short
In your case ideally you should choose a URL that is contain no special string, should have keyword in it (it’s not necessary to have a exact match key phrase) and URL length should ne as short as possible.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Deleting 301 Redirect URLs from the CMS
Hi Everyone, Would there be a negative SEO effect from deleting pages with 301 redirects in your CMS? Does anyone know of an average time of authority transfer from a redirect? Thanks,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC
Jon0 -
URL Masking or Cloaking?
Hi Guy's, On our webshop we link from our menu to categories were we want to rank on in Google. Because the menu is sitewide i guess Google finds the categories in the menu important and meaby let them score better (onside links) The problem that i'm facing with is that we make difference in Gender. In the menu we have: Man and Woman. Links from the menu go to: /categorie?gender=1/ and /category?gender=2/. But we don't want to score on gender but on the default URL. For example: Focus keyword = Shoes Menu Man link: /shoes?gender=1 Menu Woman link: /shoes?gender=2 But we only want to rank on /shoes/. But that URL is not placed in the menu. Every URL with: "?" has a follow noindex. So i was thinking to make a link in the menu, on man and woman: /shoes/, but on mouse down (program it that way) ?=gender. Is this cloaking for Google? What we also could do is make a canonical to the /shoes/ page. But i don't know if we get intern linking value on ?gender pages that have a canonical. Hope it makes senses 🙂 Advises are also welcome, such as: Place al the default URL's in the footer.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Happy-SEO0 -
Site build in the 80% of canonical URLs - What is the impact on visibility?
Hey Everyone, I represent international wall decorations store where customer can freely choose a pattern to be printed on a given material among a few milions of patterns. Due to extreme large number of potential URL combinations we struggle with too many URL adressess for a months now (search console notifications). So we finally decided to reduce amount of products with canonical tag. Basing on users behavior, our business needs and monthly search volume data we selected 8 most representative out of 40 product categories and made them canonical toward the rest. For example: If we chose 'Canvas prints' as our main product category, then every 'Framed canvas' product URL points rel=canonical tag toward its equivalent URL within 'Canvas prints' category. We applied the same logic to other categories (so "Vinyl wall mural - Wild horses running" URL points rel=canonical tag to "Wall mural - Wild horses running" URL, etc). In terms of Googlebot interpretation, there are really tiny differences between those Product URLs, so merging them with rel=canonical seems like a valid use. But we need to keep those canonicalised URLs for users needs, so we can`t remove them from a store as well as noindex does not seem like an good option. However we`re concerned about our SEO visibility - if we make those changes, our site will consist of ~80% canonical URLs (47,5/60 millions). Regarding your experience, do you have advices how should we handle that issue? Regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | _JediMindBender
JMB0 -
Unique page URLs and SEO titles
www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title. For example: I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about" Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url? Or is that considered black hat? If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end? Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique? Finally...am I making any sense? Any and all thoughts appreciated...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | keeot0 -
Include placename in URL, or not?
Hi Mozzers, I'm wondering whether to put placename in URL or not. This is for a hotel so it's very focused on the county. I have loads of sub pages along the lines of www.hotelname.com/short-breaks-somerset www.hotelname.com/eat-out-somerset and so on but I was wondering whether that placename element would help or hinder. For example, may want to rank for short breaks in other searches (not just those seeking short breaks in Somerset) and was wondering whether the somerset bit may actually hinder this in the future. Also noticed Somerset is mentioned in nearly all of the page urls through the site. Perhaps this is a bit spammy and just not neccesary. I can include the address of the hotel on every page anyway. What do you think? Thanks in advance for your help 🙂 Luke
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0 -
New Site Structure
Greetings SEOmoz Team and Users, I need some advise, our site has more products to offer so I am try to optimize the index for a general term and each page product for it's own main keyword. Our site offers accommodation such apartments, hotels and vacation rentals so this is my structure: Index: Main Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Site name(brand name) Page Product 1: Main Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Site name (brand name) Page Product 2: Main Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Site name (brand name) Also can I use the brand name at the end of title tag with separate words ? example: londonescape or london escape or londonescape.net London Apartments | short term london apartments | London Escape or London Apartments | short term london apartments | LondonEscape I think ''London Escape'' is better because has more popularity. Looking forward to hear from you. Thanks, Giuseppe
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WorldEscape0 -
Google Bombing For A Specific URL
The term "Beruk" which means "Ape or Monkey" in english brings up this page of wikipedia amongst the first page result: URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khairy_Jamaluddin The page does not contain the word "Beruk". External links to the page do not contact the anchor-text "Beruk" Given the above scenario, how is the page still ranking on first page for this keyword?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rajeevbala0