Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Will properly encoded & signs hurt or help me?
-
Hello friends,
Will properly encoding a url hurt my ranking after having it improperly coded? I want to change my & symbols to &
If I go from:
http://www.example.com/product.php?attachment=pins&model=coolTo:
http://www.example.com/product.php?attachment=pins&model=coolWill I get hurt if I make the leap?
-
Properly encoding a URL will not hurt your ranking. In fact, it is a good practice to properly encode URLs because it can help ensure that they are properly interpreted by web browsers and other systems.
The & symbol is used to separate parameters in a URL. When a URL is not properly encoded, the & symbol can be interpreted as the start of a new parameter, which can cause the URL to be incorrectly interpreted. By encoding the & symbol as &, you can ensure that the URL is properly interpreted and that all of the parameters are correctly associated with the correct values.
There is no risk of being penalized or otherwise negatively impacted in terms of search rankings by properly encoding a URL. It is simply good practice to ensure that your URLs are properly formatted and can be correctly interpreted by the systems that use them.
-
Thanks! I dodged a bullet. I was going to change all my urls with an & to & the other day, but I decided to ask here first. I'm glad I did. These are very old urls too, maybe 15 years old. I'll just let it be, they rank great.
-
Changing URLs in any way will hurt your rankings - the process of redirecting the old URL to the new one causes a loss of equity which then has to gradually be rebuilt.
That said, for new URLs, I would say the only relevant consideration is how the URL will appear in search results and browsers as readable, or not, to human users.
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
-
Who is correct - please help!
I have a website with a lot of product pages - often thousands of pages. As each of these pages is for a specific lease car they are often only fractionally different from other pages. The urls are too long, the H1 is often too long and the Title is often too long for "SEO best practice". And they do create duplication issues according to MOZ. Some people tell me to change them to noindex/nofollow whilst others tell me to leave them as they are as best not to hide from google crawler. Any advice will be gratefully received. Thanks for listening.
Technical SEO | | jlhitch0 -
I want to move some pages of my website to a folder and nav menu in those pages should only show inner page links, will it hurt SEO?
Hi, My website has a few SaaS products, to make my website simple i want to move my website some pages to its specific folder structure , so eg website.com/product1/features
Technical SEO | | webbeemoz
website.com/product1/pricing
website.com/product1/information and same for product2 and so on, the website.com/product1/.. menu will only show the links of product1 and only one link to homepage (possibly in footer). Please share your opinion will it be a good idea, from UI perspective it will be simple , but i am not sure about SEO perspective, please help thanks1 -
Duplicate content issue with ?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=
Hello,
Technical SEO | | Dinsh007
Recently, I was checking how my site content is getting indexed in Google and from today I noticed 2 links indexed on google for the same article: This is the proper link - https://techplusgame.com/hideo-kojima-not-interested-in-new-silent-hills-revival-insider-claims/ But why this URL was indexed, I don't know - https://techplusgame.com/hideo-kojima-not-interested-in-new-silent-hills-revival-insider-claims/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hideo-kojima-not-interested-in-new-silent-hills-revival-insider-claims Could you please tell me how to solve this issue? Thank you1 -
Do rss feeds help seo?
If we put relevant RSS feeds on a site, will it help the SEO value? Years ago, I shied away from RSS feeds because they slowed the site down and I didn't like relying on them. However, the past couple years, the Internet has become better, especially in Alaska.
Technical SEO | | manintights280 -
HELP: Wrong domain showing up in Google Search
So i have this domain (1)devicelock.com and i also had this other domain (2)ntutility.com, the 2nd domain was an old domain and it is not in use anymore. But when i search for devicelock on Google, the homepage devicelock.com does not exist. Only ntutility.com comes up. I asked one of the developer how the redirect is happening from the old domain to the new one and he told me its through a DNS forward. And there is no way to have an .htacess file to set up a 301 instead. Please help!
Technical SEO | | Devicelock0 -
Can dynamically translated pages hurt a site?
Hi all...looking for some insight pls...i have a site we have worked very hard on to get ranked well and it is doing well in search. The site has about 1000 pages and climbing and has about 50 of those pages in translated pages and are static pages with unique urls. I have had no problems here with duplicate content and that sort of thing and all pages were manually translated so no translation issues. We have been looking at software that can dynamically translate the complete site into a handfull of languages...lets say about 5. My problem here is these pages get produced dynamically and i have concerns that google will take issue with this aswell as the huge sudden influx of new urls....as now we could be looking at and increase of 5000 new urls. (which usually triggers an alarm) My feeling is that it could be risking the stability of the site that we have worked so hard for and maybe just stick with the already translated static pages. I am sure the process could be fine but fear a manual inspection and a slap on the wrist for having dynamically created content?? and also just risk a review trigger period. These days it is hard to know what could get you in "trouble" and my gut says keep it simple and as is and dont shake it up?? Am i being overly concerned? Would love to here from others who have tried similar changes and also those who have not due to similar "fear" thanks
Technical SEO | | nomad-2023230 -
Should we use "and" or "&"?
Our client has an ampersand in their brand name. The logo has "&", their url is spelled out. I'm trying to get them to standardize the use of the name for directories/listings. Should we use "and" or "&"?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0 -
Is a redirect based on a session cookie hurting rankings?
My clients business is divided in chain stores. All stores are set under the same franchise. There is one domain www.company.com with branches like www.company.com/location1/content and www.company.com/location2/content etc. I've taken care of duplicate content issues with rel="canonical" and duplicate page titles are also not a concern, anymore. Right now the concept is like this: If you visit the site for the first time you get to choose between the locations. Then a cookie is set and once you revisit www.company.com it will redirect you via a php header command to the location stored in your cookie: www.company.com/location1/content. My question is if this might hurt rankings in some kind of way as these aren't permanent redirects with a 301 but rather individual ones, based on your cookie.
Technical SEO | | jfkorn0