Importance of SEO Friendly URLs
-
Hey SEOZ!
How important do you all think SEO friendly URLs are to SEO. Here is an example:
Non: http://www.domain.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=2964
Friendly: http://www.domain.com/product_name_here.html
I have always heard mixed reviews but did an experiment comparing results on the same domain and actually noticed quite a difference with the friendly ones.
Thanks!
-
Matt - Thanks for the valuable information. I will be sure to keep that in mind as I make the switch.
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the resonse Ryan! I did not give much thought to either of your points as I Was focusing on rankings. Thanks for the great info!
-
Use friendly URLs. Do NOT use underscores. They are looked at as characters, not spaces. Here is Matt Cutts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SFVfDIS5k
-
Clearly the friendly URL has the advantage. URLs are not a large ranking factor in and of themselves, but there are two additional effects to consider:
1. Friendly URLs affect CTR. Many users will examine a URL when deciding whether to click through or not.
2. Friendly URLs improve anchor text link juice flow. If your page URL is /watches then any links where the referring site simply copies your URL will have your product name (watches) in the URL.
-
I think the importance is very slowly diminishing (but will never really go away). However, I believe it is necessary when you are in a competitive vertical with exact matched domains. That way you can perfect the rest of the on-page parameters, and still not come up short because of an exact matched domain.
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
-
SEO Elements for Canonicalized URLs?
I am helping a client with SEO for their ecommerce store. They have around 65 products, but close to 500 URLs all for those same products. Basically they have a bit of an index bloat problem but long story short restructuring was too much of a lift for them, so I got them set up with a canonical URL strategy to ensure all duplicate pages point to one "main" product page. Getting to the point: They also need an on-page overhaul. I've created keyword optimized titles, metas, H1s, etc. for each product. Do these elements need to be added to every single one of the 450+ product pages OR do I only need to add them to the 65 "main" product pages that everything else is pointing to, since that will ultimately be the page that gets crawled?
Technical SEO | | AJTSEO0 -
URL is invalid: Why?
Hello everyone, I am currently listing my company on business directories. For some websites however when I add my website URL, it comes up as URL is invalid. What could be the reason for this? I have tried different variations like www., http:// and https://. Kind Regards,
Technical SEO | | SMCCoachHire
Aqib0 -
Express js and SEO?
Hi fellow Mozzers, I have been tasked with providing some SEO recommendations for a website that is to be built using express.js and Angular. I wondered whether anyone has had any experience in such a framework? On checking a website built in this and viewing as a GoogleBot etc using the following tools it appears as though most of the content is invisible: http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php http://www.browseo.net/ Obviously this is a huge issue and wonder if there are any workarounds, or reccomendations to assist (even if means moving away from this - would love to hear about it)
Technical SEO | | musthavemarketing2 -
Images on Website for SEO
Good Morning, We have a magento website with hundreds of different products that have slight size variations. The image for each of these products looks the same (the only difference between the products is some of the dimensions) .... Would you recommend using the same image for each of these products and just use a generic file name that describes the overall product or would you give each product its own image with it's specific product name as the file name? Should I use 1 image for 500 different sku's or should i rename the file the name of each individual sku and load an individual image? The end user will not know the difference since all of the images will appear identical, simply asking from an SEO perspective. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Prime850 -
SEO impact classifieds website
Hi, I'm part of an organization running a classifieds platform in Spain. (Mercadonline.es) We are hit by Google penalties since a few weeks, possibly caused by numerous errors we are experiencing. Most frequent errors are 404's and duplicate content (titles tags etc) since the nature of our website is dynamic. Many ads change daily, are added or removed, causing Googlebots (and others) to flag us and not being able to see our more unique content. Until what part of our platform should we be indexed? Since we have +34,000 pages indexed (mostly due to internal filter pages) I would need a systematic solution for us to display relevant and unique content, with enough usage of keywords that can bring us back up - we are actually ranked <50 on google for most of our main keywords. It is costing us precious time and money since we can only aquire our visitors (adwords etc) and not being to attract any organically. I can go in more detail with someone who can give me a bit more direction. Your answer is much appreciated! Ivor
Technical SEO | | ivordg0 -
Can anyone recommend an SEO friendly Joomla extension to use for SEO on an existing website?
Can anyone recommend an SEO friendly Joomla extension to use for SEO on an existing website? I have downloaded sh404sef but I don't want to change my URL's and make them longer than they are at the moment. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | Karen_Dauncey0 -
Planing Seo For New Seo
Hello; I have the domain which registerd in 2006 and i opened website 1 months ago and i start to do some seo like bought links pr1-pr7 50 links and 2500 social bookmarks 2000 blog links and also some wiki links am i doing good or bad ?
Technical SEO | | Sadullah0 -
What's the SEO impact of url suffixes?
Is there an advantage/disadvantage to adding an .html suffix to urls in a CMS like WordPress. Plugins exist to do it, but it seems better for the user to leave it off. What do search engines prefer?
Technical SEO | | Cornucopia0