URL extensions naming
-
I have always wrote URL extensions as www.mysite.com/two_words.html .... when I need to separate two words, I use _ as the separator ...
I am a first time SEO Moz user ... I
While looking around the tools on SEO Moz, I happened to stumble across the on-page analysis.
A great tool indeed, rather worryingly though, one issue it flagged to me was my URL extension
"Characters which are less commonly used in URLs may cause problems with accessibility, interpretation and ranking in search engines. It is considered a best practice to stick to standard URL structures to avoid potential problems."
Can someone advice me if this really is a problem, its just not this project, its tons of sites I have already developed that I am also worried about ...
I always write file extensions with more than one word using _ to separate the words.
How should I write the extension, I am almost embarrassed to ask this question ...
Surely, even Google's algorithms are not smart enough to decipher two words without some some sort of spacing ....
Regards
J
-
Thanks ....
Hmmm, I learn something new everyday .... Well I learn lots, but this one in particular will inevitably lead me to changing very old habits
-
Adam is correct,
When I was hired at my company 3 years ago everything was underscores, so I had to evaluate if renaming would be beneficial. At the time I came across this video from Matt Cutts
What I took away from this is the following, which I use today as general guidelines.
If the page already exist and is performing well
I leave it as itIf the page already exist but isn't performing well and only has 2 keywords separated
Content Update, and re-evaluate a month of so laterIf the page already exist isn't performing well and is separating 3 or more keywords with underscores (red_delicious_apples.html) Content update, and switch to dashes and 301 direct old page to new page
If the page is a new page
Just use dashesThat is my general strategy for handling pages. There are other things to consider such as site uniformity, some owners/marketing directors don't like their sites urls to be mixed, and some sites which use CMS systems may have to go for an all or none approach.
I hope that helps.
-
Generally it is considered best practice to separate words using a hyphen (-) rather than an underscore (_) as Google recognises hyphens as spaces. It also looks much neater using hyphens in urls as opposed to underscores which is why I advise using hyphens instead.
However, it doesn't really make a huge difference as Google can generally recognise the keywords without the use of hyphens. There are of course exceptions to this. The most famous example of this being www.expertsexchange.com. I'm sure you can see the issues with this domain.
Hope this helps.
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
-
301 and the base URL
Hi, please bear with me as I'm pretty new to all this! I've my base URL but obviously want to add keywords to it for seo purposes. Should I redirect from the base URL to the URL with the keywords appended? So my landing page goes from say www.moz.com to www.moz.com/keywords-here. If I do that, should I replicate all the meta data (descriptions etc) on the original landing page? Or does it not matter? Thanks, Nick
On-Page Optimization | | nickwoodward0 -
How defined does the anchor text need to be for a domain url?
Ok, I'm looking to clean up my domain with irrelevant Anchor text linking to specific URL's. Whether, it's my root domain or a particular product URL. I'm finding a wide variety of terms (anchor text) pointing to my homepage, category and finally my product pages. Example, the Anchor text "Paragon Print Systems" is pointing to my homepage "barcodefactory.com" does this hurt my homepage enough to either have the link/anchor text removed from linking to my homepage? thanks much!, Warren
On-Page Optimization | | Warren.W0 -
[HELP!] File Name and ALT Tags
Hi, please answer my questions: 1. Is it okay to use the same keyword on both file name and alt tags when inserting an image? Example: File Name: buy-lego-online.jpg ALT tag: buy-lego-online Will it trigger Google Panda? Will I be penalized for that? Or the file name and alt tags should be different from each other? Because when inserting an image on Wordpress, the alt tags are always the same as the file name by default. 2. For example, I have 2 images in a page (same topic/niche) and I will put "cheap-lego-for-kids" and "best-lego-for-sale" as alt tags. Considering that I repeat the word "lego", is it considered keyword stuffing? Will I be penalized for that? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | bubblymaiko0 -
Image naming best practices?
While I have found many good sources of information for naming images for SEO purposes, I'm having trouble finding an up-to-date, exhaustive and authoritative source for image names, alt tags, etc. For instance... Max characters for image name? Max hyphens? How descriptive should you be? "ice-cream-flavors-icon_._jpg" or "ice-cream-flavors.jpg" or simply "ice-cream.jpg" How similar should the image name, alt text and page title be? At what point are you overusing a keyword? Rules to follow? So much more, but you get the idea! Anyone have a good reference or an answer to all things related to images and SEO? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | OSD0 -
How would you target alternative names for your product with the use of internal/landing pages?
Recently, there has been some new industry names that have emerged for the type of software we provide and we want to make sure that we rank for those terms (of course!). The 3 names combined are too long for a title tag and would look odd to incl all 3 in the homepage. Any suggestions (or examples) of how this could done without looking spammy? I also don't really know where to put this within our website. e.g. enterprise portal, enterprise information portal (EIP) or corporate portal Any suggestions would be most welcome
On-Page Optimization | | alexpeps0 -
No Data Available for this URL
Hi,
On-Page Optimization | | ostiguyj
I really don't understand why I have this message "No data available for this URL"
in my SEOMOZ campain. (www.bienchezsoi.ca) When I look at my page rank, I get a score of 0 I have no idea of to fix it. Please help. Thanks0 -
3 Different Home Page URL's Being Indexed?
Hello Everyone! I own a dog supplies eCom site on the x-cart platform. I recently upgraded to 4.4 version about 3 weeks ago and am noticing 3 different home page URL's getting indexed and ranked: /
On-Page Optimization | | k9byron
/home.php
/home.php?cat= I dont know why this is happening and I dont claim to be an expert SEO but know this cant be good! I am seeing high rankings on certain terms for all 3 URL's. Has anyone seen this before and can anyone give me any feedback on this and how it may be effecting my sites ranking in the future? Thanks in advance!
Byron-0 -
Redirecting to a keyword-rich domain URL
It's best practice to choose a domain that has keyword in it. But if someone has just launched a website and the domain name does not have keyword, is it better to purchase a new domain name that has a keyword in the name and redirect existing domain to the new domain? Will that help SEO? (This just launched website does not have any traffic or links yet.)
On-Page Optimization | | Amjath0