Keyword in URL: Ranking Factor?
-
I've got a site about a specific topic, which we'll call "themes" for the sake of this discussion. I personally like to keep the url structure short and clean (for usability purposes, but mainly because I'm a perfectionist and a minimalist).
I feel that adding "themes" to the url structure is a bit redundant. However, nearly every keyword phrase that my site should rank for includes the word "themes." So I'm wondering how much I'm handicapping myself by not including the keyword "themes" in the url?
The domain name itself sort of includes the keyword . . . although it's in Italian (I chose the domain for it's brand-ability, not for the keyword). A quick example:
My Url Structure: www.themo.com/topic/abc
My Competitor's Url Structure: www.sitesample.com/themes/topic/abc
For many of the keywords, the competitors with the keyword in the url rank highest. But, I'm not sure how much emphasis to place on this, because from my understanding Google doesn't pay as much attention to url keywords anymore . . . and those sites might just be ranking high because they've been around for so long (which also happens to be the reason why they coincidentally also include the keyword in the url, because they started the site when that was a high ranking factor).
Thoughts? Should I just trash my perfectionism and add the keyword to the url structure?
(By the way, the site is only a couple months old and doesn't have any significant backlinks to inner pages yet, so changing the url structure wouldn't be a big deal if I decided to do that).
-
Thank you for this information Erwan. Exactly what I was looking for.
-
Wow Erwan,
Great info
-
I made a test recently with the keyword "histoire de la bretagne" on google.fr; this keyword is interesting because it is not a commercial one and the links are not manipulated.
Please find the rankings results attached.
Results 1-4 = long articles (22 000 words for #1 wikipedia), high DA/PA
But result 5 = no article, low DA/PA but still outranking better pages because the keyword is in the domain name = <cite>centre-histoire-bretagne.com</cite>
Pages 6 to 10 are better; page 7 should be in top 3 in term of quality (original content with 20 000 words) but they don't have the exact keyword in their URL !
With no or few backlinks, you can outrank a better website if you have your keyword in domain name or close to it in URL.
Result 9 is a university with crazy backlinks, good alexa rank and some social engagement; but their website has 0 SEO; URL = bibnum.univ-rennes2.fr/items/show/336
In my opinion, Google still pay serious attention to URL keywords and you should optimize yours.
Hope this help!
-
I don't need an audit for on-page optimization since I'm familiar with what should be done when sticking to the "rules" of SEO.
I'm basically trying to figure out how much benefit that keyword being in the url is going to have. In other words, am I going to have a hard time outranking my competitors for those keywords even if I have the better site?
-
Hi,
I would advise you to do a site audit and have a look at your on page optimisation before making drastic changes,
In saying this your keyword in your url is of benefit.
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
-
Should I change my website urls?
We're translating our website in a few languages (FR / DE / JP) using subdirectories. So our website will have the following urls www.brand.com/en
On-Page Optimization | | dcalexandra
www.brand.com/fr
www.brand.com/de
www.brand.com/jp I would like to change the url structure of a few pages from www.brand.com/section/feature-name to www.brand.com/feature-name Is it a good idea to do this now since we're adding the subfolders and these are anyway new urls in google's eyes?0 -
Dashes "-" in keyword?
Just running over the page/keyword analyzer and Moz picked up the fact that my link and title are not the same as the keyword I am targeting. I am targeting the keyword "Battlefield 4 CD Key" However my title (and therefore link) are Battlefield 4 CD-Key. Note the dash. Does the dashes matter in SEO or should I try to remove them and have continuity through all of the page.
On-Page Optimization | | MrPenguin0 -
Ranked page is not desired page
I have a question on a problem I am currently faced with. There is a certain keyword that my employer wants to rank for. The good news is that sometimes it does rank in the top 5 pages of Google. (It drops in and out) The bad news is that it is going to a page that we need to keep, but not the ideal place we want people who are looking for that keyword to go to. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this type of situation and what tactic they used to get people to the better page.
On-Page Optimization | | trumpfinc1 -
Entire subfolder not ranking.
I'm currently running an ecommerce site on which an entire subfolder namely the: /category/ extension is not ranking for any keywords.The category pages are being indexed within Google. Pages with very similar content are however being ranked for keywords on extensions such as /pages/, I created a new page to test this and within a week it was ranking for the keywords where /category/ pages have not for months. I was wondering if anyone had come across this issue before and had any solutions or suggestions? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | JMoran0 -
Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization
<dl> <dt>Cannibalizing link</dt> <dd>Several links...
On-Page Optimization | | 678648631264
</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>It's a best practice in SEO to target each keyword with a single page on your site (sometimes two if you've already achieved high rankings and are seeking a second, indented listing). To prevent engines from potentially seeing a signal that this page is not the intended ranking target and creating additional competition for your page, we suggest staying away from linking internally to another page with the target keyword(s) as the exact anchor text. Note that using modified versions is sometimes fine (for example, if this page targeted the word 'elephants', using 'baby elephants' in anchor text would be just fine).</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Unless there is intent to rank multiple pages for the target keyword, it may be wise to modify the anchor text of this link so it is not an exact match.</dd> <dd>How do I fix this?
</dd> </dl>0 -
How important is it to include the target keyword phrase in the page URL?
If I want to target a keyword phrase to a particular phrase, but do not want to change the URL of that page, will that negatively impact my rankings? I am also wondering if I can get around it by creating a new, short URL that 301 redirects to the original URL. Would that be as effective as including the keyword in the original URL?
On-Page Optimization | | susannajbost0 -
Importance of URL Structure
We are trying to restructure our onpage SEO and want to make sure we have our URLs correct. The problem is we did the URLs incorrectly in the first place and the ones we currently have are several years olds. We have some URLs such as: http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/management/prince2.asp and
On-Page Optimization | | RobertChapman
http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/cisco/ccna_2007.asp which are not ideal but user experience aside does it make sense for us to change the URLs and use 301 redirects to the new ones or is the damage done to our natural rankings simply not worth making the change? I have read different articles saying different things, some say that URL structure has little weight (if any weight at all) on rankings while other people seem to say it is quite important. In addition we have heard that changing the URLs with a 301 redirect will cause a large drop in ranking which will take months to recover from and contrarily that 301s are now considered "ok" by Google and we shouldn't see too much change at all in our rankings. Any advice would be much appreciated.0