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.
URL keyword separator best practice
-
Hello.
Wanted to reach out see what the consensus is re-keyword separators
So just taken on a new client and all their urls are structured like /buybbqpacks rather than buy-bbq-packs - my understanding is that it comes down to readability, which influences click through, rather than search impact on the keyword.
So we usually advise on a hyphen, but the guy's going to have to change ALLOT of pages & setup redirects to change it all wasn't sure if it was worth it?
Thanks!
Stu
-
Some yes some way off. I'll move on that basis.
Thanks
Stu
-
are you ranking well for all or most of the keywords? if yes then I wouldn't suggest you to do that because even if you use 301 redirect you will loose some link juice. If that is not the case you can go ahead.
My suggestion was purely based on what Google's recommendation and in terms of readability.
Thanks
-
Thanks.
Though would changing 100s or urls adversely impact ranking? Per this: https://moz.com/community/q/will-changing-a-url-negatively-affect-ranking
so perhaps a strategy of change going forward, but don't mess with anything existing? Or otherwise?
Thanks again.
Stu
-
Hi,
IMO Your assumption" is correct. Existing url structure need to change with hyphen.
According to Google "The URL http://www.example.com/green-dress.html is much more useful to us than http://www.example.com/greendress.html."
Full article is here @ https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76329?hl=en
Hope this helps.
Thanks
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
-
Query for paginated URLs - Shopify
Hi there, /collections/living-room-furniture?page=2
On-Page Optimization | | williamhuynh
/collections/living-room-furniture?page=3
/collections/living-room-furniture?page=4 Is that ok to make all the above paginated URLs canonicalised with their main category /collections/living-room-furniture Also, does it needs to be noindex, follow as well? Please advice, thank you!1 -
How many keywords should I optimize a page for?
Hi, There is a lot of debate going on on whether to use a single keyword per page or multiple keywords per page. What I know for sure is that it is not advisable to repeat the same exact keyword in different pages. I need to optimize product pages, categories and pages for an online store and still do not know if it is better to: 1-work with one main keyword per page plus latent semantic keywords, 2-to optimize a page for multiple different keywords (2 to 4 keywords) which are strongly related to the main topic or to the product sold in a particular product page 3- use single keyword for each page (and no more than one keyword per page). Some seo gurus argue this is the best way to get higher ranking for that particular page in the serps. My personal opinion would be 1 or 2, but I would like to hear what you suggest and think about it. Any suggestion or opinion is welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | cinzia090 -
Avoid Keyword Dilution
Hi
On-Page Optimization | | ulefos
I am struggling with keyword dilution, and I don't understand what I need to do to change.I have read it but don't get it. This is the explanation - You want to target each keyword with a single page on your site, so modify the anchor text of this link so it is not an exact match. The only thing that I see is the title and the anchor text the same and the image alt also the same is that what the problem is here is the page I am trying to sort out for the keyword kiln dried logs.
Thank you0 -
How to separate your - keywords - and | Brand name in the Title Tag
I have traditionally used hyphens (-) and vertical bars (|) to separate out keywords/brands in title tags. A client has asked if other characters will work such as tilde (~), apersat (@), forward slash (/) etc. Are there any special characters we should steer clear of?
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0 -
Meta separators
I've been told that pipes are the best separators for title tags. Can anyone tell me the best ones for H1 and H2 tags? Do I go with pipes, commas, hyphens, underscores...?
On-Page Optimization | | Greatmats0 -
Is it necessary to add keywords to all of your pages?
Hi Everyone he company I work for has just built a new website with approximately 87 pages/sub pages. Should i be looking to add keywords and descriptions to all of these pages, via the allocated areas in the back end of the site? I am using "google's key words" tool to generate relevant key words. If any one has any advice it would be much appreciated. Thanks for you help Regards Pete
On-Page Optimization | | dawsonski0 -
301 redirect and then keywords in URL
Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
How long should anchor text be? Best practice for anchor text length?
site: http://www.cerritosnissan.com/index.htm On the bottom of this homepage there is an seo content area, basically right under where it says "orange county nissan" welcomes you. The internal links in this area are very long and I'm wondering why they would do this - is there any benefit to making anchor text longer? The longer the anchor text, the less each part of that anchor text passes link juice. For example, for a page about their reviews, the anchor text of the link is "See what Cerritos Nissan customers have to say about their experience at this great Orange County Nissan Dealership.". If I would have done this the anchor text would be "Cerritos Nissan Reviews" or just plain "reviews" as the anchor text. Why would they be using such long keywords as anchor text?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw
0