Can Search Engines Read "incorrect" urls?
-
I know that ideally a url should be something of the nature domain.com/topic, but if the url contains additional characters, for example, domain.com/topic?keyword, can the search engines still understand the complete words in the domain? Even though there are additional "incorrect" characters? Or do they stop "reading" once they find odd characters?
Thanks!
-
A few other things to note for having parameters in URLs:
- In Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools, you can instruct the search engines to ignore certain parameters, so that they'll treat domain.com/topic?keyword and domain.com/topic as the same page (if ?keyword doesn't change the page content)
- You can also place the rel=canonical element on pages. So you could set domain.com/topic?keyword to rel canonical to domain.com/topic to pass its pagerank along.
-
Search engines will read all your parameters unless you tell google with webmaster tools what parameters to ignore. This can cause an issue with the url like domain.com/topic?keyword&somefield then pages that include the keyword and other parameters will share the link juice. So, if you have 10 options of somefield you will get ~1/10 value per page indexed.
So, it is better for you to use rewrites to include your keyword in the url and then mark parameters to not be indexed in Goggle etc.
-
Search engines can read most characters in a URL string, but specifically & generally refers to a variable in a script which doesn't typically have much valuable information regarding what a page may be about. Sometimes those variables may be the topic of a category of a shopping cart, so I have to imagine that information could be taken into account, but for long urls like the following it is hard to believe everything is factored into the URL's relevance to the keyword: http://www.google.com/search?q=long+url+string&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Search engines index the whole URL and if there is keyword rich content that can definitely help, both from having the keyword bolded in the snippet (CTR WIN!) and a possible bump in the page's relevance to the keyword.
-
In general search engines are able to identify keywords in the URL even if they are i.e. a parameter that follows a "?" or other non-alphanumeric character. They might not treat it as an equally strong signal as when the keyword is a part of the file name, subdomain or domain name though. Hope that answers your question.
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
-
Google Search Console "Text too small to read" Errors
What are the guidelines / best practices for clearing these errors? Google has some pretty vague documentation on how to handle this sort of error. User behavior metrics in GA are pretty much in line with desktop usage and don't show anything concerning Any input is appreciated! Thanks m3F3uOI
Technical SEO | | Digital_Reach2 -
SEO question: Need help on rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
Hi all, we have webcontent in 3 languages (official belgian yellow pages), we use a separate domain per language, these are also our brands.
Technical SEO | | TruvoDirectories
ex. for the restaurant Wagamamahttp://www.goudengids.be/wagamama-antwerpen-2018/ corresponds to nl-be
http://www.pagesdor.be/wagamama-antwerpen-2018/ corresponds to fr-be
http://www.pagesdor.be/wagamama-antwerpen-2018/ corresponds to en-be The trouble is that sometimes I see the incorrect urls appearing when doing a search in google, ex. when searching on google.be (dutch=nederlands=nl-be) I see the www.pagesdor.be version appearing (french) I was trying to find a fix for this within https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=nl , but this only seems to apply to websites which use SUBdomains for language purposes. I'm not sure if can work for DOMAINS. Can anyone help me out? Kind regards0 -
Objects behind "hidden" elements
If you take a look at this page: http://www.americanmuscle.com/2010-mustang-body-kits.html You will notice we have a little "Read More" script set up. I have used Google Data Validator to test structured data located behind this 'Read More' and it checks out OK but I was wondering if anyone has insight to whether or not the spiders are even seeing links, etc. behind the 'Read More' script.
Technical SEO | | andrewv0 -
How can I see the SEO of a URL? I need to know the progress of a specific landing-page of my web. Not a keyword, an url please. Thanks.
I need to know the evolution on SEO of a specific landing-page (an URL) of my web. Not a keyword, a url. Thanks. (Necesito saber si es posible averiguar el progreso de una URL específica en el posicionamiento de Google. Es decir, lo que hace SEOmoz con las palabras clave pero al revés. Yo tengo una url concreta que quiero posicionar en las primeras posiciones de Google pero quiero ver cómo va progresando en función a los cambios que le voy aplicando. Muchas gracias)
Technical SEO | | online_admiral0 -
I always get this error "We have detected that the domain or subfolder does not respond to web requests." I don't know why. PLEASE help
subdomain www.nwexterminating.com subfolder www.nwexterminating.com/pest_control www.nwexterminating.com/termite_services www.nwexterminating.com/bed_bug_services
Technical SEO | | NWExterminating0 -
Does the rel="bookmark" tag have any SEO impication?
I'm assuming the rel="bookmark" tag doesn't have any SEO implications but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't viewed like a nofollow by search engines.
Technical SEO | | eli.boda0 -
Should I change these "Overly dynamic URLs" ?
Hello, My client have pages that look like this: www.domain.com/blog/index.aspx?blogmonth=1&blogday=10&blogyear=2012&blogid=256 Question 1: SEOMoz say they are overly dynamic. Is it really in this case as the numbers indicate the year, month and day and do not change? Question 2: Should we change the URLs to proper SEO friendly URLs such as www.domain.com/keywords1-keyword2? The pages are already ranking well and we worry that changing the URL may damage the ranking? Do we risk the page to go down in ranking by creating SEO friendly URLs? (and using a 301 to redirect from the old URL)
Technical SEO | | DavidSpivac0 -
Can Google read text in Javascript?
We have just completed the redesign of our product page, which you can see here: http://www.uksoccershop.com/p-19045/2011-12-Chelsea-Adidas-Away-Football-Shirt.html Because we want the select size / add to basket section to appear prominently, you can see we are showing only a snippet of the product description in this section and then user has to click "more" to see it. My question is, can Google read the product description here since it's in Javascript? The code is as follows: 2011-12 Chelsea Adidas Away Football Shirt £44.99 Item Code:379606 Brand new, official Chelsea away shirt for the 2011/12 Premiership season, available to buy in adult sizes S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL. This football shirt is manufactured by Adidas and is black in colour.[ More...](javascript:void(0);) Brand new, official Chelsea away shirt for the 2011/12 Premiership season, available to buy in adult sizes S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL. This football shirt is manufactured by Adidas and is black in colour. Cheer on the Blues in style in the new adidas Chelsea Away Shirt, featuring a striking blue blocked design on an imposing black background complete with the club crest and adidas logo embroidery across the chest for a great style on or off the pitch. The new Chelsea Away Shirt is designed with adidas' ClimaCool technology to bring moisture away from your skin, keeping you cool, comfortable and performing at your best as you emulate the skills of Frank Lampard, Fernando Torres and John Terry on the pitch. Customise your shirt with Premiership shirt printing for your favourite Chelsea stars or choose your own custom name and number. Adult Football Shirt
Technical SEO | | ukss1984
Short sleeves soccer jersey
Chelsea club crest to left chest
adidas logo and stripes
Print sponsor to centre
ClimaCool technology
Machine washable Product code: 379606 The 2011/12 Chelsea away football kit is released on 7th July 2011. <form name="currenychange" action="http://www.uksoccershop.com/p-19045/2011-12-Chelsea-Adidas-Away-Football-Shirt.html" method="get">
<select class="topselectbox" onchange="this.form.submit();" name="currency" style="float:right;"> <option value="USD">US Dollars</option> <option value="EUR">Euro</option> <option value="GBP" selected="selected">UK Sterling</option> <option value="AUD">Australian Dollars</option> </select>
</form> Available Now [Be the first to ask a question](javascript:void(0); "Ask a Question")
[Be the first to review this product](javascript://) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars <form name="cart_quantity" action="http://www.uksoccershop.com/p-19045/2011-12-Chelsea-Adidas-Away-Football-Shirt.html?number_of_uploads=0&action=add_product" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"> Which parts of this is Google going to be able to read? Should we make the product title our H1 header for this page and can it currently read that within the code above? </form>0