Are the prepositions and separate letters in URL bad for website optimization?
-
Is it ok for website optimization to use prepositions and separate letters in URL ?
Examples: -i-series ; -salad-with-avocado etc.
-
Thanks Ipegiro... My point exactly on saying "unless they are creating value within the url"... as obviously "bunny-on-stool" has a completely different meaning than "bunny-stool"..
Cheers
-Jake
-
Reducing the url lenght will be a best pratice, however my adivice is to alwways put yourself as a user, the dumbest user you could be.
Which one is the best for your users e.g. bunny-on-stool or bunny-stool
Google will ignore hyfens and stopwords (the, a, on, ....)
-
Typically you want to minimize url length by removing stop words, prepositions, etc. unless they are creating value within the URL. e.g. bunny-on-stool vs. bunny-stool
I wouldn't go as far as to say it is bad for SEO, but there are some schools of thought that minimizing the number of words in a URL "concentrates" relevance around those terms remaining. That being said, I'm confident Google already ignores common stop words and phrases, and this isn't something I would go about changing in an existing URL structure.
You'll notice some sites, such as wordpress, by default remove the prepositions, etc. from the URLs.
-
Yes, it's perfectly fine. It used to be that you actually needed to use hyphens to separate words in the URL (so search engines could understand) but now you don't need to do that.
So, it is OK to use hyphens in URLs.
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
-
Rich Snippets in wordpress websites
Hi all, What is the best and easiest plugin to configure and implement on WordPress blog websites? And what is the specific markup recommended for blog/article sites? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | emojo0 -
We have new website abexpress.ae. The website is not ranking in the first page when I search with the Domain name itself. Any tips to improve the SEO for a new website?
We have launched a website abexpress.ae. The website is not ranking well even if we search with the Domain name. The Domain authority of the website it 10. How to increase this?
On-Page Optimization | | AlliedTransport0 -
Website Refresh - Lost Rankings
Hi, we refreshed our website a few weeks ago, with a new design. The structure has changed and pages do have new URLs. But the content, meta titles, etc have stayed the same and I have put 301 redirects in for all of the new pages (using the redirection plugin in word press). I have found that pages which ranked in the top 3 in the past are now nowhere. The page authority also shows as 1 for all of the pages. Is there something we should do to get the rankings and page authority back? Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | danieldunn100 -
Optimizing images on website. Is it bad to use the same alt names and keywords?
I have a webpage that I have 6 separate images showing step by step instructions of how to use our product with a sentence describing instruction inside image. I took screenshots of the instructions from the products App and uploaded them to webpage because they provide a great visual. I want to make sure I optimize correctly, can I use the same keywords for all the image names?
On-Page Optimization | | artscube.biz0 -
With 301 Redirects Does Changing URLs Matter?
We are redesigning our website in order to give it a more modern visual look. For the most part all the content will remain the same. Our old site is hosted on .asp so all of our current URLs look something like this: www.example.com/products/food.asp We plan on using 301 redirects in order to update every URL and remove the .asp. Since we are going to be doing 301 redirects for every existing URL anyways, does it matter from an SEO and ranking standpoint, if we also change the content and structure of the URL? For example, would we see a ranking impact if we were to change the above example URL to www.example.com/food? Obviously we want to try to retain as much link juice and ranking factors as possible during this redesign. Another issue we are seeing is with the image file names of our existing website images. We are moving to a new CMS platform (WordPress) that automatically saves images using a folder path similar to this: wp-uploads/2015-08/food. Will that change affect our SEO or ranking at all? When Google crawls an image does it care about the full path? Any insight would be much appreciated! 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | BlueLinkERP0 -
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 -
Adding keywords to URL's
I understand the importance of having the keyword in the URL (at least now I do). When I created my site (www.enchantingquotes.com), I was completely ignorant about SEO. So....question is...how do I go about adding keywords to already done pages? Do I create a new section and then redirect - or do I have to basically recreate pages? Thx much 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | enchantedgirlz0 -
Over Optimization Penalty
Hi Guys, I was listening to the over optimization penalty Matt Cutts was talking about at SXSW over at Search Engine Land. http://searchengineland.com/too-much-seo-google%E2%80%99s-working-on-an-%E2%80%9Cover-optimization%E2%80%9D-penalty-for-that-115627# Looking at my on-page reports through SEOMOZ I have A report cards for each page, will we be OK or do we need to take a look? Thanks, Scott
On-Page Optimization | | ScottBaxterWW1