Does having a "+" in a URL hurt SEO? Would much value be gained changing it to a hyphen?
-
There's a site that contains "+" signs in the URL in order to call different information for the content on the page. Would it be better to change those to hyphens (-), or not that much value will be gained, so leave them as is?
Thanks!
-
Here is what I posted last time this came up:
I would get those re-written to dashes for a few different reasons:
- Dashes are known as the best way to separate terms in URLS
- IMO dashes are easier to read by the user, and easier to remember thus more user friendly (just my opinion though no data behind this)
- Plus signs are often used in URL encoding or in query strings, both of which are not great for users, and both of which have been thought of in the past to look somewhat "off putting" to search engines compared to dashes.
So while it might be a pain I would say go to dashes.
Also here is link someone posted last time about an article Rands wrote in 2006:
-
You should use hyphens rather than plus signs if possible.
Plus signs are a "reserved" character normally used in dynamic URLs and could cause confusion for the web crawlers which could lead to pages not getting indexed.
However, if you have been using plus signs and don't have any issues with those pages not being indexed, you can probably safely leave them in place. There are sites that use plus signs without any problem. If those pages already have lots of inbound links, you would need to do 301 redirects or use a rewrite to change the plusses to hyphens. Apparently plus signs can be recognized as separators like a hyphen, so there is probably no significant difference in regard to SEO.
So if it isn't going to be a huge hassle with redirects etc, I would recommend changing to hyphens.
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
-
What to do with "trendy" content that is no longer relevant?
Hi all, My company is in the fashion/jewelry industry and we regularly create short content describing the latest trends in jewelry. We do not include any sort of date reference on the content, which means that a searcher who gets to our site has no way of knowing if this is a trend from 2008 or 2016. Does anyone have any experience with the best way to handle this? I want to remain relevant for our customers. It seems like a big disservice to our customers to show them a "trend" which trended 5 years ago. Is there a benefit to keeping this content around or would it be better to cycle it off the site after 6 months or so? Thanks for any advice or experience you have! R.
On-Page Optimization | | FireMountainGems1 -
Communities Served on Page for SEO
Hi, We have an urgent care facility outside of our hospital located in an other location and we would like to increase the organic seo for the highest traffic surrounding towns. I have toyed with the following ideas but would like to know what everyone thinks is best. 1.) Just included "proudly serving patients in Area 1, Area 2, Area 3, Area 4" on the bottom of the page. 2.) Create a page that says areas served... then each page would have a non-duplicated and original content for that area. 3.) build a microsite for the urgent care site and optimize with content from option 2 above and just add option one to our main website.
On-Page Optimization | | sphcs0 -
Will "internal 301s" have any effect on page rank or the way in which an SE see's our site interlinking?
We've been forced (for scalability) to completely restructure our website in terms of setting out a hierarchy. For example - the old structure : country / city / city area Where we had about 3500 nicely interlinked pages for relevant things like taxis, hotels, apartments etc in that city : We needed to change the structure to be : country / region / area / city / cityarea So as patr of the change we put in place lots of 301s for the permanent movement of pages to the new structure and then we tried to actually change the physical on-page links too. Unfortunately we have left a good 600 or 700 links that point to the old pages, but are picked up by the 301 redirect on page, so we're slowly going through them to ensure the links go to the new location directly (not via the 301). So my question is (sorry for long waffle) : Whilst it must surely be "best practice" for all on-page links to go directly to the 'right' page, are we harming our own interlinking and even 'page rank' by being tardy in working through them manually? Thanks for any help anyone can give.
On-Page Optimization | | TinkyWinky0 -
Url structure
Hi Guys, Wondering what is better for url structure say for example a key word "slow cooker" example.com/slowcooker or example.com/slow-cooker ? Thank you 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | GetApp0 -
Local on-page SEO
If it feels like you are doing something wrong, then you 'probably' are... Local on-page SEO When optimising a page for local SEO, and trying tick all the usuals boxes, you find yourself adding words like 'golf clubs leeds' which sounds awful when part of a natural paragraph of text. Does Google recognise this poor use of grammar? We try to be as creative as possible, as not to offend the visitor, but it feels wrong... any advice? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | indicoll0 -
Title tag and URL Optimization
Hello guys, Should the URL reflect the structure of the title of a webpage? This is the old title with the Url: 20mm O/D Black Polypropylene LSZH Flexible Conduit 100m Coil /Product/20mm-o-d-black-polypropylene-lszh-conduit-100m-coil/1352 I changed the keyword position and it looks like this: 20mm Flexible Conduit | O/D Black Polypropylene LSZH | 100m I kept the same Url for now, should I change that too? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | PremioOscar0 -
SEO and PDFs
Hi there, how could I incorpore the PDF's documents of my site to the SEO strategy in order to optimize the page in which is included in? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Solve "Too many links on page"
Hello, I own a Opencart site with a lot of products , I am getting this error in the campaign report, how can I fix it? Read other members replys but I dont understand how .. I would appreacite if you could explain it easy because my native language is spanish and my english is really poor I am really happy of find this site, incredible quality, thank you very much!
On-Page Optimization | | matiw0