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.
Does a page's url have any weight in Google rankings?
-
I'm sure this question must have been asked before but I can't find it.
I'm assuming that the title tag is far more important than the page's url. Is that correct? Does the url have any relevance to Google?
-
both are important for SEO - the filename in the URL should match up with your title tag. all filenames should be unique. for example
www.coolsite.com/kids-toys/blue-schwinn-bike
not
www.coolsite.com/kids-toys/blue-schwinn-bike/index.php
this latter example would cause you to wind up with Google seeing every page with the same filename index.php
-
both are important for SEO - the filename in the URL should match up with your title tag. all filenames should be unique. for example
www.coolsite.com/kids-toys/blue-schwinn-bike
not
www.coolsite.com/kids-toys/blue-schwinn-bike/index.php
this latter example would cause you to wind up with Google seeing every page with the same filename index.php
-
Thanks for your help Wayne.
Best,
Richard
-
Thanks, Rachel. That's what I thought, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to check with some Pros.
Best,
Richard -
Richard, here is a document I would check out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls. It's from the man (Rand) himself and much of what is stated holds true today.
-
Your URL example is fine, it's the gobble-de-gook URLs that are a problem
-
Thanks Wayne,
I'm okay with our domain name, but the urls of some of our pages have long navigation paths (e.g. http://www.lifeinsure.com/education-center/life-insurance-videos/how-much-life-insurance-should-i-have). A lot of our pages have urls like this.
Do you see any problem with a url this long and does Google put more weight on the title tag than on the url?
Best,
R
-
Hi Richard,
The short answer is, yes, domain names and URL structure are certainly key to positive ranking for particular keywords. Some would argue that domain names carry too much weight (I personally think so!), but it's a fact, so be careful when picking your domain name and also be sure you are properly formatting your URLs.
If you have specific questions regarding either, I'm happy to try and help.
Best,
W
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
-
Google ranking content for phrases that don't exist on-page
I am experiencing an issue with negative keywords, but the “negative” keyword in question isn’t truly negative and is required within the content – the problem is that Google is ranking pages for inaccurate phrases that don’t exist on the page. To explain, this product page (as one of many examples) - https://www.scamblermusic.com/albums/royalty-free-rock-music/ - is optimised for “Royalty free rock music” and it gets a Moz grade of 100. “Royalty free” is the most accurate description of the music (I optimised for “royalty free” instead of “royalty-free” (including a hyphen) because of improved search volume), and there is just one reference to the term “copyrighted” towards the foot of the page – this term is relevant because I need to make the point that the music is licensed, not sold, and the licensee pays for the right to use the music but does not own it (as it remains copyrighted). It turns out however that I appear to need to treat “copyrighted” almost as a negative term because Google isn’t accurately ranking the content. Despite excellent optimisation for “Royalty free rock music” and only one single reference of “copyrighted” within the copy, I am seeing this page (and other album genres) wrongly rank for the following search terms: “free rock music”
On-Page Optimization | May 3, 2023, 3:00 PM | JCN-SBWD
“Copyright free rock music"
“Uncopyrighted rock music”
“Non copyrighted rock music” I understand that pages might rank for “free rock music” because it is part of the “Royalty free rock music” optimisation, what I can’t get my head around is why the page (and similar product pages) are ranking for “Copyright free”, “Uncopyrighted music” and “Non copyrighted music”. “Uncopyrighted” and “Non copyrighted” don’t exist anywhere within the copy or source code – why would Google consider it helpful to rank a page for a search term that doesn’t exist as a complete phrase within the content? By the same logic the page should also wrongly rank for “Skylark rock music” or “Pretzel rock music” as the words “Skylark” and “Pretzel” also feature just once within the content and therefore should generate completely inaccurate results too. To me this demonstrates just how poor Google is when it comes to understanding relevant content and optimization - it's taking part of an optimized term and combining it with just one other single-use word and then inappropriately ranking the page for that completely made up phrase. It’s one thing to misinterpret one reference of the term “copyrighted” and something else entirely to rank a page for completely made up terms such as “Uncopyrighted” and “Non copyrighted”. It almost makes me think that I’ve got a better chance of accurately ranking content if I buy a goat, shove a cigar up its backside, and sacrifice it in the name of the great god Google! Any advice (about wrongly attributed negative keywords, not goat sacrifice ) would be most welcome.0 -
Shifting target keyword to a new page, how do we rank the internal page?
I have been targeting one keyword for home page that was ranking between the postilion 6-7 but was never ranking on 1st as there were 2 highly competitive keywords targeted on the same page, I changed the keyword to an internal service page to rank it on 1st, I have optimized the content as well but the home page is still ranking on 11th, how do I get the internal page rank on that keyword
On-Page Optimization | Sep 12, 2019, 10:51 AM | GOMO-Gabriel0 -
Does Google penalize you for reindexing multiple URLS?
Hello, Just a quick, question! I was wanting to know if multiple page indexing (site overhaul) could cause a drop in organic traffic ranking or be penalized by Google for submitting multiple pages at one time. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | Jan 23, 2018, 2:47 PM | InternetRep0 -
Duplicate URL's in Sitemap? Is that a problem?
I submitted a sitemap to on Search Console - but noticed that there are duplicate URLs, is that a problem for Google?
On-Page Optimization | Mar 7, 2016, 8:59 PM | Luciana_BAH0 -
Duplicate Content with ?Page ID's in WordPress
Hi there, I'm trying to figure out the best way to solve a duplicate content problem that I have due to Page ID's that WordPress automatically assigns to pages. I know that in order for me to resolve this I have to use canonical urls but the problem for me is I can't figure out the URL structure. Moz is showing me thousands of duplicate content errors that are mostly related to Page IDs For example, this is how a page's url should look like on my site Moz is telling me there are 50 duplicate content errors for this page. The page ID for this page is 82 so the duplicate content errors appear as follows and so on. For 47 more pages. The problem repeats itself with other pages as well. My permalinks are set to "Post Name" so I know that's not an issue. What can I do to resolve this? How can I use canonical URLs to solve this problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | Sep 23, 2014, 11:21 PM | SpaMedica0 -
Home page or landing page?
Hello, I want to ask a question related to that - Should we put keywords in the home page title if we wish to position another landing page better for particular keywords? I have read in one website about SEO that it's good the main keywords of your website to be positioned in homepage title also. f.e. Let's say we have website about web-design and our company is named Company Ltd. The title of the home page is "Company Ltd. - Web design, SEO, etc" We have also another inner page named "Web design | Company Ltd.". So should we leave the first page name only "Company Ltd." and the landing page's name "Web design | Company Ltd." . I don't know if they both have the same keyword in their title they won't compete with each other.
On-Page Optimization | Apr 5, 2013, 11:02 AM | HrishikeshKarov0 -
Page title getting cut off in SERPS even though it's under 70 characters?
I re-wrote the page title of a home page for a site I'm working on and made sure it's under 70 characters (68 to be exact) to comply with best practices and make sure it doesn't get cut-off in the SERPS. It's still getting cut-off though and right when it gets to the brand/website name. Does a "-" have anything to do with it? Does that translate to an elipsis? Format: keywords - website/brand.com Can anybody tell me why this would be happening?
On-Page Optimization | Sep 15, 2011, 1:16 PM | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Changing page titles and google penalties?
I just recently learned that changing your page title earns you a google penalty. Unfortunately i learned this after playing around with my page titles a bit to get the most optimal page titles. Does anybody know how long this google penalty lasts? is it forever? or just temporary?
On-Page Optimization | Jun 15, 2011, 10:00 PM | A Former User0