Building URL's is there a difference between = and - ?
-
I have a Product Based Search site where the URL's are built dynamically based on the User input Parameters
Currently I use the '=' t o built the URL based on the search parameters
for eg:
/condition=New/keywords=Ford+Focus/category=Exterior etc
Is there any value in using hypen's instead of = ? Could you please help me in any general guidelines to follow
-
This is a really weird blend of virtual folder and CGI-style parameters. Typically, we'd see a URL either like:
(1) /page.php?condition=New&keywords=Ford+Focus&category=Exterior
OR
(2) /New/Ford-Focus/Exterior
I think either would be preferable to what you have. By using the hybrid style, Google isn't going to understand how to interpret your URLs, and it could lead to some minor SEO problems. I don't think it'll disrupt crawling or anything huge, but it's always dicey to use strange URL formats. If you can move to something like (2), I really think that's preferable, but even the longer (1) style would probably be safer.
Honestly, though, I've never seen this style of URL in the wild, so I'm making an educated guess here. I just find that different isn't always good, in these cases.
-
I'm assuming that Irving means "not letting" (sorry if that's not the case) - spinning out every search into a unique page can definitely cause some problems with thin content. Not sure if that's what you're doing, but I'd tread carefully.
-
I would advise letting the engines to get to every single search URL that users generate. You will be creating many duplicate pages. You can choose to block the engines from getting to any internal search results or perhaps a segment of the search results if they don't conflict with your category pages.
-
Hello,
I would advise you to use a hyphen instead of an equal sign. It looks better when your URL is displayed and in this article from Google's Webmasters http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=76329 "We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs."
they recommend using a hyphen instead of an underscore, so I can only assume that a hyphen is definetly a better choice than an equal sign
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
-
Sub domain? Micro site? What's the best solution?
My client currently has two websites to promote their art galleries in different parts of the country. They have bought a new domain (let's call it buyart.com) which they would eventually like to use as an e-commerce platform. They are wondering whether they keep their existing two gallery websites (non e-commerce) separate as they always have been, or somehow combine these into the new domain and have one overarching brand (buyart.com). I've read a bit on subdomains and microsites but am unsure at this stage what the best option would be, and what the pros and cons are. My feeling is to bring it all together under buyart.com so everything is in one place and creates a better user journey for anyone who would like to visit. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | WhitewallGlasgow0 -
Is putting a manufacturer's product manual on my site in PDF duplicate content
I add the product manuals to our product pages to provide additional product information to our customers. Is this considered duplicate content? Is there a best way to do this so that I can offer the information to my customers without getting penalized for it? Should they be indexable? If not how do I control?
Technical SEO | | merch_zzounds0 -
Changes to 'links to your site' in WebMaster Tools?
We're writing more out of curiosity... Clicking on "Download latest links" within 'Links to your site' in Google's WebMaster Tools would usually bring back links discovered recently. However, the last few times (for numerous accounts) it has brought back a lot of legacy links - some from 2011 - and includes nothing recent. We would usually expect to see a dozen at least each month. ...Has anyone else noticed this? Or, do you have any advice? Thanks in advance, Ant!
Technical SEO | | AbsoluteDesign0 -
Why are these URL's suddenly appearing in WMT?
One of our clients has suddenly experienced a sudden increase in crawl errors for smart phones overnight for pages which no longer exist and there are no links to these pages according to Google. There is no evidence as to why Google would suddenly start to crawl these pages as they have not existed for over 5 years, but it does come after a new site design has been put live. Pages do not appear to be in the index when a site search is used. There was a similar increase in crawl errors on desktop initially after the new site went live, but these quickly returned to normal. Mobile crawl errors only became apparent after this. There are some URL's showing which have no linking page detected so we don't know where these URL's are being found. WMT states "Googlebot couldn't crawl this URL because it points to a non-existent page". Those that do have a linking page are showing an internal page which also doesn't exist so it can't possibly link to any page. Any insight is appreciated. Andy and Mark at Click Consult.
Technical SEO | | ClickConsult0 -
How to solve the meta : A description for this result is not available because this site's robots.txt. ?
Hi, I have many URL for commercialization that redirects 301 to an actual page of my companies' site. My URL provider say that the load for those request by bots are too much, they put robots text on the redirection server ! Strange or not? Now I have a this META description on all my URL captains that redirect 301 : A description for this result is not available because this site's robots.txt. If you have the perfect solutions could you share it with me ? Thank You.
Technical SEO | | Vale70 -
Duplicate Content - What's the best bad idea?
Hi all, I have 1000s of products where the product description is very technical and extremely hard to rewrite or create an unique one. I'll probably will have to use the contend provided by the brands, which can already be found in dozens of other sites. My options are: Use the Google on/off tags "don't index
Technical SEO | | Carlos-R
" Put the content in an image Are there any other options? We'd always write our own unique copy to go with the technical bit. Cheers0 -
Additional product information: the product's sales page or a blog post?
I want to go in-depth about different customizations for custom caps, which is one of the products we offer. I just don't know whether it would be better--from an SEO perspective--to expand the caps sales page we already have or to write a blog post to give the site another valuable indexed page. From a user standpoint, I don't think it's as important, because if I do it the blog way, I can't just put a link on the page saying, Want more customizations? Visit our blog post. Any opinions?
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept1 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | | upick-1623910