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
-
Query for paginated URLs - Shopify
Hi there, /collections/living-room-furniture?page=2
On-Page Optimization | | williamhuynh
/collections/living-room-furniture?page=3
/collections/living-room-furniture?page=4 Is that ok to make all the above paginated URLs canonicalised with their main category /collections/living-room-furniture Also, does it needs to be noindex, follow as well? Please advice, thank you!1 -
Changing URL Structure From Flat to Pyramid Theme
Hello Mozzers, I have an on-page SEO question regarding URL structure. A few months back we hired a full-time SEO person who is working on-page right now and she really wants us to completely re-due our URL restructure from a flat to pyramid style (example below). Current URL structure / page title is: Dog training Collars - K9electronics.com
On-Page Optimization | | k9byron
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/ Small Dog training Collars - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/small-dog-training-collars/ Einstein ET-300TS Mini Dog Training Collar - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/einstein-et-300ts-mini-remote-dog-trainer.html Suggested URL structure / page title change: Quality Dog Training Collars - Lowest Price Guarantee - K9electronics
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/ Dog Training Collars - Small Dog - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/small-dog/ Einstein ET-300TS Mini - Dog Training Collars - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/small-dog/einstein-et-300ts-mini I guess you could say we are the poster-boys for Google penalties and have received just about every penalty in the book. Panda, penguin algo penalties and a partial manual action for unnatural links. Several months ago we removed 1000's of in-bound links and had our manual action lifted a few months back and are now hovering around the top / mid 2nd page for all our big terms ...we used to be top 3 for everything. As we were removing bad links, we also completely redesigned the site and removed lots of categories and products and 95% of all our old, low quality content and replaced it with new, high quality content. The site was really slooooow, so we optimized it and moved it to a big dedicated server and tripled page load time. Added rich snippets, Google authorship, increased our FB and other social presences and much more ... I had also considered this URL structure change during the redesign because I had heard and read that it was good to do, but it required redirecting practically all our URL's which I know can hurt the site even more so then it already has been ... Our SEO says that as it sits now, our pages are competing with each other and really seems to think this is going to improve our rankings a lot ...after several weeks. My question is, at this stage in the game, is it really going to help a lot and give us more benefit compared to the 301 redirect link juice loss? Any comments and/or suggestions are very much appreciated!1 -
Title Tag and Company Name
Hello everyone! The company I work for has an e-commerce site that needs to be optimized. I am starting from the title tags which are too long and need optimized for specific keywords. Thing is that each title tag contains the specific keywords for the page and the company name. My question is should I keep the company name within the title tags or should I just keep the keywords I target for those pages? How will it affect my rank? Cheers Oscar
On-Page Optimization | | PremioOscar0 -
How do I PERMANENTLY change an incorrect URL link with one of my keywords?
Hello, I received an “F” grade on my on-page report for one of my keywords. I noticed that the URL linked with that keyword was wrong. After changing it to the correct URL, I received an “A.” However, the change was not permanent. How do I permanently change the URL? I don’t see any “Save Changes” or “Apply Changes” button anywhere. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | jampaper0 -
Meta name and other data on home page
I am in the process of building a new website with wordpress to replace my static HTML site but cannot find out where to place my meta data such as meta name (google verification etc) on the home page. Using Yoast SEO plugin and all I can find is place for title and meta description. Anyone have any experience with this SEO problem? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
Canonical URL Tag
Hi, I have two pages that are identical on my site: http://www.absolutepower.nl/creatine-monohydraat and http://www.absolutepower.nl/CREATINE/creatine-monohydraat Should I use the canonical URL tag in this case? Thanks, Jasper
On-Page Optimization | | Japking0 -
How should I structure my product URLs?
How should I structure my product URLs for the best SEO results? Lets say my product is "American Apparel 2001". Would it be better to run the URL together or use a "-" between each word. Here are two ideas I had, but feel free to suggest others. realthread.com/products/americanapparel2001 or realthread.com/products/american-apparel-2001 Thanks for the help! Dru
On-Page Optimization | | drudalton0 -
URL Strucutre
Hi there, Need some advice please on URL structure. I have been doing SEO for quite sometime now, however one thing that always get me is URL structure. I have a decision to make, its either: URL 1 /conditions/allergies/food/ URL 2 /conditions/allergies-food/ Lets say i am optimizing for the key-phase "Food Allergies" what do you think is best practice? I know that this is not a major factor in gaining high SERPs & maybe i'm thinking about it too much, however your input would be really helpful. Kind Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | Paul780