URL and SEO
-
How much weight do search engines give the URL? We're a medical call center provider and medicalcallcenter is part of our URL. Does that help us much?
Thanks!!
-
A competitor of mine has her name as the domain url and her keywords show on seomoz as "branded" and my same keywords show "Not branded"
Why is this?
-
Keith,
Thank you for this explanation. I was making it too hard and you just cleared it up for me.
Best,
Wendy
-
Hey Wendy,
I was just reading an article on exact match domains and thought it might be of use to you http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-exact-match-domains-in-decline
-
A branded root domain = google.com, nike.com , apple.com etc any domain that uses a brand name and not a dictionary keyword's like "cheap-cars.com" or "cheapcars.com".
SEO's define a root domain as the domain name on it's own with no sub domain etc so google.com not www.google.com
-
Dear Davinia,
I am unclear on what branded root domain means. We use our name as branded keywords, but I assume that is not the same as branded root domain.
Thanks.
-
Hey Keith,
I did the same search and the keyword in the URL was not bold. Agreed don't use hyphens in the root domain (I do believe they help in folder paths), but anyway I feel that you and I could go on forever having a fun debate but I think we have made our points and from this Wendy will be able to make an informed decision, or at least our information has helped her to look in certain areas so she can do additional research.
Best regards,
Davinia -
Hey Davinia,
Check the screenshot attached, as you can see I searched for "medical call center" and in the first organic result it's parsed the domain for that keyword and made the keywords bold in the domain name.
Google's parse domains for for keywords, it's pretty basic stuff... You don't need to have a hypen (dash) in there as a delimiter any more (although this used to help years ago).
I was not simply suggesting building links to the home page will help (which it obviously will if done correctly), what I meant was there is little point building a page that as the same keywords as the domain and then building links to that page.
As the domain in question has the exact match keywords Wendy can use the home page to rank for those keywords without the need for an additional page targeting the keyword "medical call center".
Keith
-
The URLs don't have to be keyword heavy, they should be semantically in line with the content of the page and also be relevant, not only will this help as a ranking factor but it also allows for better authored search engine result page snippets (i.e. the keyword's will display in the URL on the SERP snippet), which in turn should help with click through rates.
A search engine isn't going to know that "medicalcallcenter" is "medical call center" so the URL doesn't include the keyword. Therefore adding the keywords to the file paths will get the keyword into the URL.
Agreed, building links to the homepage (and other important pages) would be a good idea.
-
If Wendy has a keyword heavy domain why not just build the links to the home page?! I would avoid repeating the keyword again in the URL if the domain already includes them...
I could understand this strategy if the domain was branded and did not include the target keywords, but that's not the case here.
Keith
-
I'd go for a branded root domain and when creating the file paths use keywords separated by hyphens, example:
www.medicalcallcenter.com
www.medicalcallcenter.com/medical-call-center
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice/colds-flus -
The short answer is yes, google have reduced the weight of this (apparently) if i was picking a brand I would probably try to include a partial match for one of the head terms without it looking spammy if possible... (like SEOMoz.org).
Spammy keyword match domains (no1-cheap-car-insurance.com) don't look as pro a branded domain IMO.
Obviously this is only one ranking factor out of many...
Hope that helps,
Keith
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
-
Strange URL resulting a page
Hi, my friend has asked me to take a look at his site. I only know the basics of SEO so I'm learning along the way. He has some duplicate title errors showing in Moz, resulting to this page: https://www.domainname.com/about/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers/money-transfers This URL shows the 'About' page. I have tonnes of pages like this showing with really long URLs that result an actual page. Has anyone seen something like this before? I don't have a clue how this is showing the about page Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks James
On-Page Optimization | | Craze_Media0 -
What is the best SEO Plug-in for Wordpress?What is the best SEO Plug-in for Wordpress?
I manage a Wordpress site and I am interested to get the community's views on the best SEO plug-ins around? We are looking at using Yoast. Should I be looking at anything else?
On-Page Optimization | | cbarron0 -
Canonical URL, cornerstone page and categories
If I want to have a cornerstone "page", can I substitute an actual page with a category archive of posts "page" (that contains many posts containing the target key phrase)? This way, if I make blog posts about a certain topic/ key phrase (example "beach weddings") and add a canonical URL of the category archive page to the individual posts, am I right then to assume google will see the archive page as the cornerstone page (and thereby won't see the individual posts with the same key phrase as competing)?
On-Page Optimization | | stephanwb0 -
URLs and folder structure for an E-commerce
Hi there !-) I´m helping a friend who has a e-commerce about nail polish in Brazil. I´m a little in doubt about the urls and folder structure. Two questions: 1. There are 10 products per category and 50 categories. Should I put them all in the root folder or creat 2 major categories ( 25 sub-categories each one)? 2. Whats the better product page url ( the store has around 500) nailpolish.com/IMPORT/BRAND/NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT OR nailpolish.com/COMPLETE-NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT Whats the best recomandation?
On-Page Optimization | | SeoMartin10 -
Should I rewrite all my URLs ?
Hi all, I'm pretty new here and this is a question I'm struggling with since years ! All my URLs are very long. Years ago I wanted to put as many keywords as possible but today I'm not sure anymore it was such a good idea. Example: http://www.spirit-of-metal.com/album-groupe-Take_Me_To_Janus-nom_album-Ripping_the_Heart_from_the_Chest_of_the_Earth-l-en.html The problem is I have more than 300K of these pages. I'm afraid to create a huge mess even if I 301 them all to the new pages. What's your opinion ? Is it worth the effort ? Many thanks in advance for your precious help !
On-Page Optimization | | kivanSOM0 -
Should ".html" in the URL or not?
Does URL like /wedding-dresses.html/f/price/2,100 with "html" in the middle do harm to SEO? Should I drop the ".html"?
On-Page Optimization | | StevenRoland0 -
Nowadays is it fundamental renaming images for SEO?
Its it fundamental nowadays renaming images for SEO? Many photos are on top positions without being renamed like: mykeyword.jpg but can be 9876986.jpg instead. Doesn't itcount much more the contest in which they are such as text around photos, descriptions and context from internal and external linking pages? Renaming everyphoto, in every gallery can be considered over optimization? Is there any study showing the impact the single factor of renaming a photo in a page? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | holidaysempire0 -
What URL Should I use in Google Place Page?
Alright, I have a client that has 1 website and 14 locations. We want to create place pages for each of their locations but my question is which URL should I put in the place page and why? I can put in the root domain into each place page, or should I put in the URL that lands on the actual location on the root. example: domain.com/location1 Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | tcseopro0