URL length does it really make a difference
-
I am currently working redevloping my site, I have terribly long URL's according to SEOMoz, can someone cover the real benefit of my editing my URLs, and then putting in all of those redirects. Should I edit old material? My site has been in wordpressformat for a couple of years now.
-
I don't know what happened to the url. Sorry about that. Try copying this and pasting it into a browser window:
-
Mike, I'm getting a 404 when I try to visit that page and find out the context of the example. Their example doesn't make much sense, as having subfolders like "direct" really aren't telling you if the traffic is direct.
I agree that it is better to not have a site 10 layers deep, but it's also beneficial to not have 20 parameters on a URL.
However, considering the OP is on Wordpress, I imagine we're talking about the post structure where you have the date as part of the URL. If the site in question is the recipe site from your profile, the following URL doesn't seem too horribly bad.
http://www.copykat.com/2009/02/07/cheddar-chicken-spaghetti/
However, if you're redesigning anyway and want a cleaner URL, you may want to consider a structure that does not include the date. The date really doesn't hold a lot of meaning in this case. I honestly don't care if your spaghetti recipe is two weeks old or five years old when I'm looking for a recipe. I use the Redirection plugin on my Wordpress site, and that plugin has been updated a bit more recently than the other plugin listed so might work a little better with the newer versions. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
Would love to see other comments and opinions.
-
Hi Stephanie,
If you do end up re-writing your URLs there is a very useful plugin here;
http://www.techzene.com/wordpress-tips/change-url-structure-wordpress/
It'll make sure your site doesn't produce thousands of 404 errors when people are finding your site via old backlinks/google
-
No.
It's what you do with it that counts! Way-hey!
-
url length per se, no, but URI structure, yes. You should not have your site designed 10 layers deep, for example. There's a discussion of it here: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3579234.htm and I like this example they give:
/readme.php?source=direct&page=34&articletype=widgetingforests&loc=uk
should rank better than:
/readme-source-direct-page-34-articletype-widgetingforests-loc-uk.html
or
/readme/source/direct/page-34/articletype/widgetingforests/loc-uk/
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 word should I use in my URL for my blog
Should I use the word "blog" in my sub folder as in : http://www.mybusiness.com/blog or should I use http://www.mybusiness.com/news. Is there a difference for when my site is crawled. I understand that a blog works a little differently. Can someone explain the basics?
On-Page Optimization | | graemesanderson0 -
Correct .htaccess settings for canonical url?
I want to forward all urls to http:www.mysite.com but am a little confuse because I am getting duplicate content error: Pages with Duplicate Page Content as of Jan 15http://titanappliancerepair.com/ 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.html 1 duplicate*****************************************************************What should I put ion htaccess file so I can forwardhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.htmlhttp://titanappliancerepair.comhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/to http://www.titanappliancerepair.comor what is the correct way to do it?I'm confused because when I enter http://titanappliancerepair.com/ in browser it showshttp://titanappliancerepair.com so how can it be considered duplicate content?.Can someone help?I have godaddy and they have gave me this code to put RewriteEngine on
On-Page Optimization | | webbutler13
rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.)$ http://www.coolexample.com/$1 [r=301,nc]What is correct?0 -
URL advice
Hi & thanks for looking, I'm not sure if I've adopted the best SEO URL structure for my site, www.vintageheirloom.com For instance, www.vintageheirloom.com/product-category/authentic-designer-vintage-bags/ Works great for the top level category 'All bags', as I'm trying to keyword authentic designer vintage bags. However the sub categories for instance 'Clutch bags' appears as, www.vintageheirloom.com/product-category/authentic-designer-vintage-bags/vintage-clutch-bags/. As you can see at the moment this URL contains duplicate terms vintage & bags. I'm guessing that duplicate keywords in a url isn't too smart, but should amend with Option 1, 2, 3 or something completely different? Option 1 - keep the top level category url the same, change the subcategory: www.vintageheirloom.com/product-category/authentic-designer-vintage-bags/clutch/ Option 2 - amend the top level category: www.vintageheirloom.com/product-category/authentic-designer/vintage-clutch-bags/ Option 3 - amend the top level category as this: www.vintageheirloom.com/product-category/bags/authentic-designer-vintage-clutch/ By the way I'm using WordPress with Woocommerce. I've asked but it's not possible with some technical issues to remove the /product-category/ section. But each product is for example just: www.vintageheirloom.com/shop/vintage-coach-yellow-duffel-sac-bag/ .... sweet. Thanks again !!
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Modify URL, how to re-index
hello, I have just modified URL, do I need to re-submit sitemap or something else to search engines?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Changing the url of a page
Hello. I would like to change the url of a page. It currently has very few inbound links. I would set up a 301 redirect to the new url. Is there anything else I should take into account before changing the url? Is there a downside to changing a url? Do inbound links carry the same value when a 301 redirect is involved? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | nyc-seo0 -
How to make desirable meta description on eCommerce website?
Today, I have read very interesting blog post about meta description:Improve snippets with a meta description makeover I have developed meta description on my eCommerce website. [Vista Stores] Home page, category page, static page and blog post contain user generated meta description but, product page have auto-generated meta description. What is best method to develop meta description on product pages for eCommerce website?
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit0 -
URL for location pages
Hello all We would like to create clean, easy URLs for our large list of Location pages. If there are a few URLs for each of the pages, am I right when I'm saying we would like this to be the canonical? Right now we would like the URL to be: For example
On-Page Optimization | | Ferguson
Domain.com/locations/Columbus I have found some instances where there might be 2,3 or more locations in the same city,zip. My conclusion for these would be: adding their Branch id's on to the URL
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/0304 Is this an okay approach? We are unsure if the URL should have city,State,zip for SEO purposes?
The pages will have all of this info in it's content
BUT what would be best for SEO and ranking for a given location? Thank you for any info!0 -
What is the best practice for changing a url of an existing page
I a looking through the on-page SEO reports in SEOmoz for one of my sites. It suggests that I change the url of a particular page to match the desired search term I want to rank for. In this case it is a site for a local business and the url is example.com/testimonials. when it probabaly should have instead been example.com/city-business-reviews. I have just a couple links to this page and I'm stuck towards the bottom of page 1 in the SERPs currently. Questions... 1. Should I change the url to include the exact keyword term I want the page to rank for? 2. If yes, what is the best method to ensure that any existing link juice to the current url is retained? Would I change the url, then create a new page with the old url and apply a 301 redirect to point it to the new page? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | fastestmanalive0