Formatting dynamic urls?
-
We have a long-time previously well-established website that was hit by panda.
On one section of the site, we have dynamic urls that include %20 in them (e.g. North%20America). It's recently come to our attention that google has both a version of the url with a plus sign (+) and the version with the %20 (space) (e.g. North+America).
Upon researching this, it seems that a hyphen (-) is preferable to either of the above. We obviously need to remove the %20's from the urls as they can cause issues. So, should we stick with the + sign since it's already indexed and ranking or do a 301 rewrite and change them all to hyphens instead of the plus sign? This is the one section of the site that has maintained rankings through the panda debacle, so we need to take that into consideration as we don’t want to lose the rankings that we have.
Along the same lines, we have two other sections of the site that provide search results as well, though these are all formatted to use a plus sign. Is it advisable to do a 301 rewrite to change the plus signs to hyphens on these as well or just leave them alone? This particular section has lost rankings over the last year with panda updates.
-
I would recommend reformatting the Urls for pages that have lost rankings. Then, just choose a few of the pages that retained their rank to try hyphens instead of + sign. Track them. If they improve, then do the rest of them. If they decline, remove the 301 redirects and return them to what they were and leave the rest of them as is.
Dana
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
-
Use existing page with bad URL or brand new URL?
Hello, We will be updating an existing page with more helpful information with the goal of reaching more potential customers through SEO and also attaching a SEM campaign to the specific landing page. The current URL of the page scores 25 on Page Authority, and has 2 links to it from blog articles (PA 35, 31). The current content needs to be rewritten to be more helpful and also needs some additional information. The downsides are that it has an "bad" URL- no target keyword and uses underscores. Which of the following choices would you make? 1. Update this old "bad" URL with new content. Benefit from the existing PA. -or- 2. Start with a new optimized URL, reusing some of the old content and utilizing a 301 redirect from the previous page? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | XLMarketing0 -
If a URL canonically points to another link, is that URL indexed?
Hi, I have two URL both talking about keyword phrase 'counting aggregated cells' The first URL has canonical link pointing to the second URL, but if one searches for 'counting aggregated cells' both URLs are shown in the results. The first URL is the pdf, and i need only second URL (the landing page) to be shown in the search results. The canonical links should tell Google which URL to index, i don't understand why both URLs are present in search results? Is 'noindex' for the first URL only solution? I am using Yoast SEO for my website. Thank you for the answers.
Technical SEO | | Chemometec0 -
Should I change the URL now?
Hi all, I have a client website that got hit in the latest algorithm update. It since appears that it had over 100 suspect links to it. I performed the Disavow procedure a few weeks ago via my Google Webmaster account, but have not received a message yet to say its been actioned. The majority of these suspect links go to one page. I am considering changing the base category (in Wordpress) to a different keyphrase and then submitting a new sitemap for indexing. This way there will be no actual link from a suspect website to a page on my website. Do you see what I mean? Will this help do you think? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | BrandC0 -
Marketing URL
Hi, I need a bit of advice on marketing URL's. The destinations URL is http://www.website.com/by-development.php?area=Isle Of Wight&development=developmentname. If we wanted to use www.website.com/developmentname on literature to send people to the ugly URL above, what would we do? Would we need to rewrite the ugly URL to the neat and then 301 the ugly to the neat? Currently, the team are using a new domain of neatandrelevant.info and 301 redirecting it to ugly URL but there are lots of different developments they want to send people to so a new domain is bought for each development which seems a bit unnecessary. They point to different pages on the ugly URL website. Assuming canonical tag would not be needed then because the ugly URL page would be redirected. Also, as the website has ugly URL's anyway, would it not be best practice to use rewrites anyway so that the URL's read www.mywebsite.com/region/development? Would it confuse things to then have extra short marketing URL's missing out /region? Hope that makes sense....
Technical SEO | | Houses0 -
GWT, URL Parameters, and Magento
I'm getting into the URL parameters in Google Webmaster Tools and I was just wondering if anyone that uses Magento has used this functionality to make sure filter pages aren't being indexed. Basically, I know what the different parameters (manufacturer, price, etc.) are doing to the content - narrowing. I was just wondering what you choose after you tell Google what the parameter's function is. For narrowing, it gives the following options: Which URLs with this parameter should Googlebot crawl? <label for="cup-crawl-LET_GOOGLEBOT_DECIDE">Let Googlebot decide</label> (Default) <label for="cup-crawl-EVERY_URL">Every URL</label> (the page content changes for each value) <label style="color: #5e5e5e;" for="cup-crawl-ONLY_URLS_WITH_VALUE">Only URLs with value</label> ▼(may hide content from Googlebot) <label for="cup-crawl-NO_URLS">No URLs</label> I'm not sure which one I want. Something tells me probably "No URLs", as this content isn't something a user will see unless they filter the results (and, therefore, should not come through on a search to this page). However, the page content does change for each value.I want to make sure I don't exclude the wrong thing and end up with a bunch of pages disappearing from Google.Any help with this is greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Marketing.SCG0 -
Omitting URLs from XML Sitemap - Bad??
Hi all, We are working on an extremely large retail site with some major duplicate content issues that we are in the process of remedying. The site also does not currently have an XML sitemap. Would it be advisable to create a small XML sitemap with only the main category pages for the time being, and then after our duplicate content issues are resolved, uploading the complete sitemap? Or should we wait to upload anything until all work is complete down to the product page level and canonicals are in place? Will uploading a incomplete sitemap be fraudulent or misleading in the eyes of the search engines and prompt a penalty, or would having at least the main pages mapped while we continue work be okay? Please let me know if more info is needed to answer! Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | seo320 -
I have a lot of warnings for "Overly-Dynamic URL"
I have a lot of warnings for "Overly-Dynamic URLs" but all the pages listed have a canonical with a static url , does this mean that I can ignore the warnings? Seems to me that I can but I just want to make sure?
Technical SEO | | Arnx1
