Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Keywords in file names vs folder names
-
We understand the value of a keyword phrase included in the URL. Is there more value to having that phrase in the folder name of the URL or the file name or does it matter?
Example:
http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design.php
or
http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design/
Which is best?
Thanks, Wick Smith
-
The short answer is, it does not matter.
The recommendation I would make is to use what some people refer to as "technology-proof" URLs. Drop the file extension. Why?
-
it looks cleaner and nicer to users
-
it makes it a bit harder (more work) for someone who wants to hack your site as they are unsure of your page's language
-
it gives you the flexibility to change technologies without requiring a new URL (from html to php for example)
The only difference between your URLs then would be the trailing slash. It is a matter of personal preference but I add the trailing slash to indicate a folder, and no slash to indicate it is a file.
Matt Cutts has a couple videos on URLs and file names which you may enjoy:
-
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
-
Optimal use of keywords in header tag
what does optimal use of keywords in header tag actually mean given you indicate this as hurting seo factor?
Technical SEO | | Serg1550 -
Personalized Content Vs. Cloaking
Hi Moz Community, I have a question about personalization of content, can we serve personalized content without being penalized for serving different content to robots vs. users? If content starts in the same initial state for all users, including crawlers, is it safe to assume there should be no impact on SEO because personalization will not happen for anyone until there is some interaction? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | znotes0 -
Multiple robots.txt files on server
Hi! I have previously hired a developer to put up my site and noticed afterwards that he did not know much about SEO. This lead me to starting to learn myself and applying some changes step by step. One of the things I am currently doing is inserting sitemap reference in robots.txt file (which was not there before). But just now when I wanted to upload the file via FTP to my server I found multiple ones - in different sizes - and I dont know what to do with them? Can I remove them? I have downloaded and opened them and they seem to be 2 textfiles and 2 dupplicates. Names: robots.txt (original dupplicate)
Technical SEO | | mjukhud
robots.txt-Original (original)
robots.txt-NEW (other content)
robots.txt-Working (other content dupplicate) Would really appreciate help and expertise suggestions. Thanks!0 -
Help: domain name change and Google News
Hi. I work for a regional news source, and our (separate) Spanish-language news publication recently changed its domain name. The publication lost its Google News inclusion. Most of their traffic came from Google News, so traffic tanked. They're trying to get back in. They reapplied but didn't get approved. They're now in the 30-day waiting period to reapply again. The website is run by a third-party company, which handled the domain name change in April (2015). That company has been running their site for a couple of years. Our in-house devs' hands are tied on helping, because we (at the mother company) don't manage their site. This third party has not been responsive. The Spanish pub folks have reached out to me to help them prepare for Round 2 of reapplication. I'm the mothership in-house SEO, but I've never experienced this situation before. Because everything seems to be in order besides the ham-handed changes, my best advice to them so far is: You'll have to wait until Google gets to know you again, unfortunately. Does that sound right? Any pointers out there for bringing their best possible A-game to the next round?
Technical SEO | | christyrobinson1 -
Site disappearing from search for a certain keyword
I was wondering if someone has encountered the same problem as me. I was doing some changes on the frontpage of one of my clients' website, especially some redirections, and my site has disappeared from Google for the main keyword on the page. So, if I look for my page on Google, instead of seeing my page first, I no longer see my page, at all. All I've done was a 301 redirection from index.html to the domain name. Now, I changed everything back to how it was before. More precisely, I've done that 2 weeks ago. But, no change in Google. I checked Bing and Yahoo, my site appears first when I search for that specific keyword. Any ideas how long will it take for Google to see that I am not doing anything wrong with redirections? Or any idea at all?
Technical SEO | | webmasterles0 -
Sitefinity vs Wordpress
We're looking for a new CMS and out development company suggested Sitefinity. I've had great success with Wordpress. Is either system better. I love worpdress but have had no experience with Sitefinity. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | StandUpCubicles0 -
How to 301 multiple domain names to a single domain
Hey, I tried to find and answer to this seemingly simple question, but no luck. So, I have one domain name with a website attached to it. I also registered all the other domain names that are similar to it or have different extensions - I want to redirect all the other domain names to my one main domain name without getting penalised by the big G. It looks like this: www.mainsite.com - this is my main domain I also have www.mainsite.com.au, www.mainsite.org, and www.mainsite.org.au which I all want to just redirect to www.mainsite.com I have been told that the best way to do this is a 301 redirect, but to do that you need to make a CNAME for all the other domains that points to www.mainsite.com. My problem is that I cannot seem to create a CNAME record for http://mainsite.com - I have it working for http://www.mainsite.com but not the non www record. What should I be doing differently? Is it just my DNS provider is useless? Thanks, Anthony
Technical SEO | | Grenadi0 -
Syndication: Link back vs. Rel Canonical
For content syndication, let's say I have the choice of (1) a link back or (2) a cross domain rel canonical to the original page, which one would you choose and why? (I'm trying to pick the best option to save dev time!) I'm also curious to know what would be the difference in SERPs between the link back & the canonical solution for the original publisher and for sydication partners? (I would prefer not having the syndication partners disappeared entirely from SERPs, I just want to make sure I'm first!) A side question: What's the difference in real life between the Google source attribution tag & the cross domain rel canonical tag? Thanks! PS: Don't know if it helps but note that we can syndicate 1 article to multiple syndication partners (It would't be impossible to see 1 article syndicated to 50 partners)
Technical SEO | | raywatson0