How do I make my URLs SEO friendly?
-
Hi all,
I am aware that overly-dynamic URLs hurt a website's SEO potential and I want to fix mine. At present they look like this:
http://www.societyboardshop.co.uk/products.php?brand=Girl+Skateboards&BrandID=153
What do I need to do to fix them please... do I add some code to the htaccess file?
Many thanks, much apreciated.
Paul.
-
Hi Paul
Which CMS system are you using? I ask because there can sometimes be a ready built solution to your problem in the form of a plugin or module.
-
No, the $ is part of the .htaccess rule, try that and let me know if it works for you.
I would strongly recommend using the rule above on a development version of your website and not directly on the live server.
-
Thanks Ben, but is that for US websites? I noticed the $ sign.
-
Try creating a .htaccess file on the root of your website with the following code.
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule /brand/(.*)/ products.php?BrandID=$1
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
What should my main sitemap URL be?
Hi Mozzers - regarding the URL of a website's main website: http://example.com/sitemap.xml is the normal way of doing it but would it matter if I varied this to: http://example.com/mainsitemapxml.xml or similar? I can't imagine it would matter but I have never moved away from the former before - and one of my clients doesn't want to format the URL in that way. What the client is doing is actually quite interesting - they have the main sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap.xml - that redirects to the sitemap file which is http://example.com/sitemap (with no xml extension) - might that redirect and missing xml extension the redirected to sitemap cause an issue? Never come across such a setup before. Thanks in advance for your feedback - Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Client wants to remove mobile URLs from their sitemap to avoid indexing issues. However this will require SEVERAL billing hours. Is having both mobile/desktop URLs in a sitemap really that detrimental to search indexing?
We had an enterprise client ask to remove mobile URLs from their sitemaps. For their website both desktop & mobile URLs are combined into one sitemap. Their website has a mobile template (not a responsive website) and is configured properly via Google's "separate URL" guidelines. Our client is referencing a statement made from John Mueller that having both mobile & desktop sitemaps can be problematic for indexing. Here is the article https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-sitemaps-20137.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
We would be happy to remove the mobile URLs from their sitemap. However this will unfortunately take several billing hours for our development team to implement and QA. This will end up costing our client a great deal of money when the task is completed. Is it worth it to remove the mobile URLs from their main website to be in adherence to John Mueller's advice? We don't believe these extra mobile URLs are harming their search indexing. However we can't find any sources to explain otherwise. Any advice would be appreciated. Thx.0 -
Duplicate URLs ending with #!
Hi guys, Does anyone know why a site can contain duplicate URLs ending with hastag & exclamation mark e.g. https://site.com.au/#! We are finding a lot of these URLs (as duplicates) and i was wondering what they are from developer standpoint? And do you think it's worth the time and effort adding a rel canonical tag or 301 to these URLs eventhough they're not getting indexed by Google? Cheers, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Does it make sense to create new pages with friendlier URLs then redirect old pages to new?
Hi Moz! My client has messy URLs. does it make sense to write new clean URLs, then 301 redirect all old URLs to the new ones? Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
301 forwarding old urls to new urls - when should you update sitemap?
Hello Mozzers, If you are amending your urls - 301ing to new URLs - when in the process should you update your sitemap to reflect the new urls? I have heard some suggest you should submit a new sitemap alongside old sitemap to support indexing of new URLs, but I've no idea whether that advice is valid or not. Thanks in advance, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Is there any negative SEO effect of having comma's in URL's?
Hello, I have a client who has a large ecommerce website. Some category names have been created with comma's in - which has meant that their software has automatically generated URL's with comma's in for every page that comes beneath the category in the site hierarchy. eg. 1 : http://shop.deliaonline.com/store/music,-dvd-and-games/dvds-and-blu_rays/ eg. 2 : http://shop.deliaonline.com/store/music,-dvd-and-games/dvds-and-blu_rays/action-and-adventure/ etc... I know that URL's with comma's in look a bit ugly! But is there 'any' SEO reason why URL's with comma's in are any less effective? Kind Regs, RB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichBestSEO0 -
SEO vs 301
I have a website about "Download of games" and im planning open one about "games online" i know that "games online" its super hard to get good ranks, soo im thinking and do a 301 from my website of "download games" to my new website, do you think that is a good strategy ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nafera21 -
SEO for Global Navigations
I did my first SEO audit from the book SEO Secrets by Danny Dover on my new website at http://melo4.melotec.com:4010/ In the book he says to disable Javascript and see if the global navigation still works. So when I did that the dropdown menus in my navigation don't show. I'm assuming this is a problem but when I check the cache text only version of the site, the dropdowns are in the text only version. Are their any experienced SEO's out their who can weigh in on this issue? Should I have my developer redo the navigation without any javascript? Thanks, Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Romancing0