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.
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
-
Page Optimization Error
Hi, I am trying to track a page optimization feature for one of my project, https://shinaweb.com but i keep getting this below error: "PAGE OPTIMIZATION ERROR
On-Page Optimization | | shinawebnavid
There was a problem loading this page. Please make sure the page is loading properly and that our user-agent, rogerbot, is not blocked from accessing this page." I checked robots.txt file, it all looks fine. Not sure what is the problem? Is it a problem with Moz or the website?0 -
Ecommerce URLs with numbers
Hi everybody! I have to optimize an ecommerce where somebody has previously done the SEO optimization, although the URLs have numbers before the product's name They have told me that these numbers are useful to find the products, so I think it shouldn't be really bad if I don't redirect them to "clear" ones. For example: /colesterol-sobrepeso/2217-hc-grass-capsulas-duras-15-capsulas.html > /colesterol-sobrepeso/hc-grass-capsulas-duras-15-capsulas.html Am I right? After all, they contain the keywords and the subfolders are also ok. Or it would be better if I redirect the whole site? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Estherpuntu0 -
XML Sitemaps for Property Website
Hi all, I was hoping that someone might have a link to a good example of an XML Sitemap for a large property (real estate) website? Thanks in advance to anyone who does! 🙂 Gavin
On-Page Optimization | | IcanAgency0 -
Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?
Hi guys, I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out. Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
How do I remove a Canonical URL Tag?
Some of my report cards say I have too many canonical URL tags. However, there is no information no how to delete one. Can someone give me a link or explain? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
SEO Optimizing in UMBRACO
Hi there, I am planning to use UMBRACO to manage my existing website, so my question to Seomozzers out there is what should I be aware of, how safe is it to have UMBRACO in terms of SEO. By using this software, would it be possible to get a positive or negative impact on my keyword rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | matti_wilson0 -
URL for location pages
Hello all We would like to create clean, easy URLs for our large list of Location pages. If there are a few URLs for each of the pages, am I right when I'm saying we would like this to be the canonical? Right now we would like the URL to be: For example
On-Page Optimization | | Ferguson
Domain.com/locations/Columbus I have found some instances where there might be 2,3 or more locations in the same city,zip. My conclusion for these would be: adding their Branch id's on to the URL
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/0304 Is this an okay approach? We are unsure if the URL should have city,State,zip for SEO purposes?
The pages will have all of this info in it's content
BUT what would be best for SEO and ranking for a given location? Thank you for any info!0 -
How to optimize a wordpress blog
I’m helping a client optimize a word press blog, and I’m not that familiar with Wordpress. The site is www.athleticfoodie.com. At first I was treating it like a normal website, where the categories would be optimized like pages on a website. However, I now realize that categories don’t have any content on them, so I can’t really optimize anything other than the names. Are the following things the best way to handle on-page optimization for a blog? Optimizing the homepage & domain: Find ways to incorporate the most important keywords into the elements on the main frame of the site: Navigation menu, Widgets, Category names, Alt Images. Optimizing the categories: For the posts within the categories (i.e., photos), work to make sure the category keywords are worked into the post titles (but not too much to seem spammy) Optimizing specific posts. Work keywords into the text and images. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340