Keyword in URL: Ranking Factor?
-
I've got a site about a specific topic, which we'll call "themes" for the sake of this discussion. I personally like to keep the url structure short and clean (for usability purposes, but mainly because I'm a perfectionist and a minimalist).
I feel that adding "themes" to the url structure is a bit redundant. However, nearly every keyword phrase that my site should rank for includes the word "themes." So I'm wondering how much I'm handicapping myself by not including the keyword "themes" in the url?
The domain name itself sort of includes the keyword . . . although it's in Italian (I chose the domain for it's brand-ability, not for the keyword). A quick example:
My Url Structure: www.themo.com/topic/abc
My Competitor's Url Structure: www.sitesample.com/themes/topic/abc
For many of the keywords, the competitors with the keyword in the url rank highest. But, I'm not sure how much emphasis to place on this, because from my understanding Google doesn't pay as much attention to url keywords anymore . . . and those sites might just be ranking high because they've been around for so long (which also happens to be the reason why they coincidentally also include the keyword in the url, because they started the site when that was a high ranking factor).
Thoughts? Should I just trash my perfectionism and add the keyword to the url structure?
(By the way, the site is only a couple months old and doesn't have any significant backlinks to inner pages yet, so changing the url structure wouldn't be a big deal if I decided to do that).
-
Thank you for this information Erwan. Exactly what I was looking for.
-
Wow Erwan,
Great info
-
I made a test recently with the keyword "histoire de la bretagne" on google.fr; this keyword is interesting because it is not a commercial one and the links are not manipulated.
Please find the rankings results attached.
Results 1-4 = long articles (22 000 words for #1 wikipedia), high DA/PA
But result 5 = no article, low DA/PA but still outranking better pages because the keyword is in the domain name = <cite>centre-histoire-bretagne.com</cite>
Pages 6 to 10 are better; page 7 should be in top 3 in term of quality (original content with 20 000 words) but they don't have the exact keyword in their URL !
With no or few backlinks, you can outrank a better website if you have your keyword in domain name or close to it in URL.
Result 9 is a university with crazy backlinks, good alexa rank and some social engagement; but their website has 0 SEO; URL = bibnum.univ-rennes2.fr/items/show/336
In my opinion, Google still pay serious attention to URL keywords and you should optimize yours.
Hope this help!
-
I don't need an audit for on-page optimization since I'm familiar with what should be done when sticking to the "rules" of SEO.
I'm basically trying to figure out how much benefit that keyword being in the url is going to have. In other words, am I going to have a hard time outranking my competitors for those keywords even if I have the better site?
-
Hi,
I would advise you to do a site audit and have a look at your on page optimisation before making drastic changes,
In saying this your keyword in your url is of benefit.
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
-
Keyword position
I fixed all the crawl issues but still my website is in second page.
On-Page Optimization | | NueveSolution0 -
URL Structure Suggestion
Hi
On-Page Optimization | | sandeep.clickdesk
My site url: http://goo.gl/AiOgu1
We are working on URL structure of our website. I have one query about URL structure.
Which one is good URL structure according to user and SEO prospective.
The targeted keyword for the particular page is "wordpress live chat". Is it worthful to rewrite the present url "https://www.abc.com/wordpress" to "https://www.abc.com/wordpress-live-chat" Please suggest.0 -
Can we rank website without main keywords on its homepage?
For example my company website on Google Search Engine... Web Design Company & Digital Agency in Jakarta
On-Page Optimization | | Japracool
coriate.com/
Coriate is a website design & Internet marketing firm in Indonesia. We offer the best web solutions, digital advertising, and SEO Services in the industry. Can I do backlink to it, but different keywords? Like Social Media Management or Facebook Like?0 -
Similar URLs
I'm making a site of LSAT explanations. The content is very meaningful for LSAT students. I'm less sure the urls and headings are meaningful for Google. I'll give you an example. Here are two URLs and heading for two separate pages: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-1/q-10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10 http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning II, Q10 There are two logical reasoning sections on LSAT 69. For the first url is for question 10 from section 1, the second URL is for question 10 from the second LR section. I noticed that google.com only displays 23 urls when I search "site:http://lsathacks.com". A couple of days ago it displayed over 120 (i.e. the entire site). 1. Am I hurting myself with this structure, even if it makes sense for users? 2. What could I do to avoid it? I'll eventually have thousands of pages of explanations. They'll all be very similar in terms of how I would categorize them to a human, e.g. "LSAT 52, logic games question 12" I should note that the content of each page is very different. But url, title and h1 is similar. Edit: I could, for example, add a random keyword to differentiate titles and urls (but not H1). For example: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10-car-efficiency/ LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10, Car efficiency But the url is already fairly long as is. Would that be a good idea?
On-Page Optimization | | graemeblake0 -
Number of occurances of a keyword
At the moment my site is down due to issue at the datat centre so please don't ask for teh url as it will be some time before it is back up and running. On one of my pages I am targeting two related keyword phrases e.g. "How to use Widgets" and "Using Widgets" Each of these phrases appears once each in the Tile tag, H1 tag and meta description and two or three times in the body text. Which I beileve is current best practice. However the word Widgets appears more 60 times in total could this be hurting the rankings of the other two phrases? Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | spes1230 -
URL Rewrite
(By Google Traductor) Hello, I wanted to ask about some changes that we are evaluating for the issue of passing the url with variables to be more descriptive, for example: http://www.agroads.com.ar/detalle.asp?clasi=139592 tohttp://www.agroads.com.ar/humedimetro-para-cereales-draminski-gmm-139592.html In this case corresponds to the breakdown of a product if you have long published andcan be well positioned to change the title of this position would be lost unless youmanage it with a 301, as one would manage when you have more than 30000 products and title may change several times? There are tools to manage this? Finally, we must apply this to all listed with their respective filters, recommends doingtheir part with 301 redirects and analyze what funciene well to continue with the rest or implement a complete change? I hope I can bring a little light to implement this. Greetings and thanks! Roberto
On-Page Optimization | | romaro0 -
Brand Name URL Redirecting to Actual URL
So we have already built a site under a parent company's URL: parentcompany.com And now we have their branded product lines in directories: parentcompany.com/brand-name1, and parentcompany.com/brand-name2 We also own the actual URL Brand Name 1 (which is also the exact description of the product): brandname1.com We do not yet own the URL for Brand Name 2 (which is also the exact description of the product): brandname2.com. This is because a squatter is sitting on it and is asking $10,000+ for it. What we are trying to determine is how valuable these brand name URLs are since they will be redirecting and not the actual site's primary domain name. Anybody know how much of an effect owning those and redirecting has on ranking for those brand names that are also very descriptive of the products? Would we be smarter to spend $10,000 on adwords or 10,000 on the domain? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | grayloon1 -
Title Keyword Question
I'm writing up keywords for new pages on a website. There are a number of variations on the way we can say what we're looking for, and I don't want to post the specific keywords but I'll give an example using fruits. Let's say I want to optimize for Granny Smith apples, McIntosh apples, Jonathan apples, etc. Could my title be Apples - Granny Smith, McIntosh, Jonathan and my page will come up when someone searchs "Granny Smith apples" or "McIntosh apples" etc. or do the words have to be repeated in order. Obviously I will also be repeating these in the description and on the page I'm optimizing. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | crlana0