Difference between revisions of "Learn/Improve-Your-URLs-for-Better-SEO"
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* '''Include ''a few'' important keywords in your URLs.''' | * '''Include ''a few'' important keywords in your URLs.''' | ||
: A keyword-infused URL helps: | : A keyword-infused URL helps: | ||
| − | :* Make it more clear to your visitors that the page is really what they're looking for. Would you rather see example.com/blog/219058 or example.com/blog/thing-you-searched-for ? | + | :* Make it more clear to your visitors that the page is really what they're looking for. Would you rather see example.com/blog/219058 or example.com/blog/thing-you-searched-for ? (Places where people will see it) |
| − | :* Give search engines one more indication of what your page is about, and what queries it should rank for. | + | :* Give search engines one more indication of what your page is about, and what queries it should rank for. A URL without keywords won't ''hurt'' you, but it's a missed opportunity and a competitor with relevant keywords in their URLs may rank higher than you for it. |
{{PullQuote|right|If you have got a three, four or five words in your URL, that can be perfectly normal. As it gets a little longer, then it starts to look a little worse. Now, our algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.|Matt Cutts of [[Google.com|Google]]}} | {{PullQuote|right|If you have got a three, four or five words in your URL, that can be perfectly normal. As it gets a little longer, then it starts to look a little worse. Now, our algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.|Matt Cutts of [[Google.com|Google]]}} | ||
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* '''Don't use more than a few query parameters (?, =, and &) in your URLs.''' | * '''Don't use more than a few query parameters (?, =, and &) in your URLs.''' | ||
: Here's an example of an okay URL (the kind you use to [[Learn/Track-Your-Marketing-in-Google-Analytics|track your marketing in Google Analytics]]) with 2 query parameters: | : Here's an example of an okay URL (the kind you use to [[Learn/Track-Your-Marketing-in-Google-Analytics|track your marketing in Google Analytics]]) with 2 query parameters: | ||
| − | :<nowiki>http://www.example.com/</nowiki>page'''<u>?</u>'''source'''<u>=</u>'''facebook | + | :<nowiki>http://www.example.com/</nowiki>page'''<u>?</u>'''source'''<u>=</u>'''facebook |
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: Bad URL with too many query parameters: [need example] | : Bad URL with too many query parameters: [need example] | ||
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:Bonus: Using subfolders allows you to use "content drilldown" in Google Analytics to easily view data for all the pages in the subfolder. | :Bonus: Using subfolders allows you to use "content drilldown" in Google Analytics to easily view data for all the pages in the subfolder. | ||
| − | + | * '''Don't have multiple subdomains or directories.''' | |
| − | + | : A subdomain or directory is something that comes before the domain name in a URL. For example: | |
| − | + | :<nowiki>http://blog.example.com</nowiki> | |
| − | + | : Too many subdomains | |
| − | + | ==How to change your URLs== | |
| + | In an ideal world, setting a friendly URL structure is something that would be done when a website is first created. Then it just works going forward. | ||
| − | + | It can be a pain in the neck to change some things on your website, like your URL structure. Most content management systems (CMS) allow you to change your default URL structure, or individual URLs for pages... but you have to find that setting or option. If you use WordPress, see [[Learn/WordPress:-Built-for-SEO#URLs_and_Permalinks|WordPress: Built for SEO]] for details on how to enable SEO-friendly URLs, or permalinks. | |
| − | + | One thing to keep in mind: The above list are best practices for URLs and they can help your SEO, but as with other changes on your website, if it's a lot of work to improve your URLs you will need to weight the costs and benefits. For example, SEOBook knows what they're doing, but opted to leave their URLs less SEO-friendly because... [pull in convo from twitter] | |
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| − | + | http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/common-url-related-seo-mistakes | |
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| − | + | See also: | |
* Customize your URL on Facebook -- link to 7 Tricks | * Customize your URL on Facebook -- link to 7 Tricks | ||
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* Don't miss out on other opportunities to use your keywords -- titles, meta descriptions, headings | * Don't miss out on other opportunities to use your keywords -- titles, meta descriptions, headings | ||
Revision as of 21:46, 3 May 2011
By [[User:|]] on
Your URLs are an opportunity to let search engines and people know what your page is about. But if you don't care for your URLs they may provide no SEO or human value, and they may even trip them up or hurt you.
Clean and informative URLs look better to people and are more easily digestible by search engines.
- Include a few important keywords in your URLs.
- A keyword-infused URL helps:
- Make it more clear to your visitors that the page is really what they're looking for. Would you rather see example.com/blog/219058 or example.com/blog/thing-you-searched-for ? (Places where people will see it)
- Give search engines one more indication of what your page is about, and what queries it should rank for. A URL without keywords won't hurt you, but it's a missed opportunity and a competitor with relevant keywords in their URLs may rank higher than you for it.
| “ | |
” |
| —Matt Cutts of Google | ||
- Keep your URLs to less than 115 characters.
- Research shows that people click on short URLs in search results twice as often as long ones.
- Long URLs can look like spam, plus as the URL gets longer the ranking weight given to each word in the URL gets spread thin and is less valuable.
- You can manually check the character count of all your URLs to make sure they're not too long, or the AboutUs Site Report can do that for you and point out any URLs that are longer than 115 characters.
- Don't use more than a few query parameters (?, =, and &) in your URLs.
- Here's an example of an okay URL (the kind you use to track your marketing in Google Analytics) with 2 query parameters:
- http://www.example.com/page?source=facebook
- Bad URL with too many query parameters: [need example]
- Use hyphens instead of underscores in your URLs.
- Search engines see underscores as a character and this effectively means that your keywords will be stuck together. On the other hand, a hyphen is a space that separates words. Hyphens are better for SEO because they allow search engines to interpret your web page as being relevant for more keyword phrases. That said, Wikipedia's links use underscores and they seem to be doing okay :-)
- Example: http://www.example.com/this-is-what-the-page-is-about is better than http://www.example.com/this_is_what_the_page_is_about
- Keep all of your content less than 3 subfolders deep.
- A subfolder is a folder that is visible in a URL between two slashes. For example, in http://www.example.com/articles/name-of-page, articles is a subfolder and "name-of-page" is an article in that subfolder.
- When it comes to subfolders, search engines assume that content that is many folders away from the root domain is less important. It's best to keep all of your content less than 3 subfolders deep.
- In other words, make sure your URLs have 3 or less slashes (/) after the domain name. Here is an example URL that is a web page that is two subfolders deep:
- http://www.example.com/subfolder-1/subfolder-2/page-name.htm
- Bonus: Using subfolders allows you to use "content drilldown" in Google Analytics to easily view data for all the pages in the subfolder.
- Don't have multiple subdomains or directories.
- A subdomain or directory is something that comes before the domain name in a URL. For example:
- http://blog.example.com
- Too many subdomains
How to change your URLs
In an ideal world, setting a friendly URL structure is something that would be done when a website is first created. Then it just works going forward.
It can be a pain in the neck to change some things on your website, like your URL structure. Most content management systems (CMS) allow you to change your default URL structure, or individual URLs for pages... but you have to find that setting or option. If you use WordPress, see WordPress: Built for SEO for details on how to enable SEO-friendly URLs, or permalinks.
One thing to keep in mind: The above list are best practices for URLs and they can help your SEO, but as with other changes on your website, if it's a lot of work to improve your URLs you will need to weight the costs and benefits. For example, SEOBook knows what they're doing, but opted to leave their URLs less SEO-friendly because... [pull in convo from twitter]
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/common-url-related-seo-mistakes
See also:
- Customize your URL on Facebook -- link to 7 Tricks
- Don't miss out on other opportunities to use your keywords -- titles, meta descriptions, headings