Numbers in URL

[michelledemaree]

Hey guys! Need your many awesome brains. This may be a very basic question but am hoping you can help me out with some insights beyond "because Google says it's better".

I only recently started working with SEO, and I work for a SaaS website builder company that has millions of open/active user sites, and all our user sites URLs, instead of www.mydomainname.com/gallery or myusername.simplesite.com/about, we use numbers, so www.mysite.com/453112 or myusername.simplesite.com/426521

The Sales manager has asked me to figure out if it will pay off for us in terms of traffic (other benefits?) to change it from the number system to the "proper" and right way of setting up these URLs. He's looking for rather concrete answers, as he usually sits with paid search and is therefore used to the mindset of "if we do x it will yield us y in z months".

I'm finding it quite difficult to find case studies/other concrete examples beyond the generic, vague implication that it will simply be "better" (when for example looking at SEO checklists and search engine guidelines). Will it make a difference? How so?

I have to convince our developers of the importance and priority of this adjustment, or it will just drown in the many projects they already have. So truly, any insights would be so very welcome. Thank you!

[AxialDev]

The reference uses the words "Consider" and "when possible", which is not as clear as other suggestions Google make. Instructions are crystal clear for other on-page techniques, such as hreflang.

As a power user who works with clients in multiple languages, I frequently switch between languages using the URL, like going from https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76329?hl=en to https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76329?hl=fr. This wouldn't be possible if the URL was https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/keep-a-simple-url-structure. For this particular use, I would argue the former are more "user-friendly" than the latter!

More and more the URL is becoming a relic of the past. Sitename and Breadcrumbs are replacing it in SERPs. Browsers on mobile hide it by default. There is no URL bar in recent in-app browsers (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn).

On the hand, it has been said in the past that keywords in URLs help search engines understand the context of a link when there is no anchor text.

A few things to consider:

• The need to create 301 redirects and the risk of losing trafic
• The impact on on-site SEO (hreflang, canonicals, sitemaps, internal links, etc.)
• The qualitative impact (do your users expect this feature? do visitors expect this feature?)
• Most importantly, the fact that it's probably a low priority optimization!
• If at all possible, consider running an experiment.

Hope this helps! I left out a clear answer on purpose - because I don't have one.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Just offering my opinion.  There is no such thing as "concrete proof" that can't be disproven in this case due to the complexity of SEO.

Every factor is just one among many.  So a site that has "proper" URL syntax can easily and readily outrank and outperform a site that doesn't if enough individual factors across the whole spectrum are strong enough.

Conversely, A site that has numeric URL structure and "non-ideal" syntax can also easily and outrank / outperform a site that has "proper" URL syntax if that site has enough strength from other factors to outweigh the "proper" structured URL site.

Anyone who has a case study claiming otherwise is not acknowledging how complex the reality of what we do is, and how any sub-group of signals can be so strong as to far outweigh any other sub-group of signals.

[michelledemaree]

True story, Highland. Very useful case, thank you!

[Highland]

I really like how Stack Exchange handles their URLs

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30526714/seo-and-user-friendly-urls-for-multi-language-website

So to break down the URL, they have a directory questions, then the question ID and THEN the SEO friendly tag. Since the URL can be edited by anyone, it preserves the reference the system needs to access it regardless of what URL you're using. This might help your programmers if they know they can keep the ID in the URL. Otherwise you have the overhead of looking up the URL and then loading the correct page. Does that keep it typeable? No, but let's be honest... when was the last time you actually typed a URL (more than just the domain name) into your browser?

[MattAntonino]

Click through rate is an excellent line of thought as well. Nice one. You're 100% right, as well.

[michelledemaree]

Hey John,

I think you're onto something there. Putting it in a context of "us against them" and showcasing that we're actually falling (and staying) behind because we don't have these basics in order could be very effective. I think I got stuck in their mindset demand of "show us quantitative data!". So thanks a lot for offering me a different perspective, appreciate it!

[ClaytonJ]

Michelle

Matts answer is perfect but if you want me all you can do is condense common sense to them in a written form.  I will try and give some suggestions.  Firstly I would also give them online examples.  Specifically I would use best in class pure online operators that your bosses would be familiar with. Competitors and not keeping up with them always rankle good bosses.

Hence showing examples between agreed world class operators and what you are doing would clearly highlight the lack of "best in class" attributes of your company SOP.

As Google states a Google indicator in page ranking is the words in the URL. Hence if you bosses are capable enough and type car insurance into www.google.com.au - nearly all websites will display a website like the below.

<cite class="_Rm">www.comparethemarket.com.au/car-insurance/</cite>Hence even your bosses with only a few key strokes should be able to see what is best practice. Ask them to show you a world class online operator that states www.comparethemarket.com.au/123456 for the keyword car insurance.So in summary I would show them what is happening in a the real world - simply ask them to type in a query to bring up a good online operator.  Best still show them what your competitors are up to.Good luck with them.

[michelledemaree]

Hi Carlos, and thanks!

Yeah, for sure it will help out a lot of our users (which is just as much a priority for me as optimizing SEO for our own main site). Our own main site (www.simplesite.com) does have just words in the URL. It's just the sites from our users/customers that has numbers. Which is just endlessly frustrating for me AND our users, because they obviously want their pages and titles reflected in their URLs. So yeah, CTR is a really good point. Thanks again!

[Carloseo]

Hi Michelle,

I can think of 2 main benefits of using words in URLs have instead of numbers.

If you are reading an article about Paella, and there is a list of recipes from different pages:

• mysite.com/453112
• othersite.com/how-to-cook-best-paella/

The second link is most likely to get more clicks. The same situation on Google search page, although the title is more important a readable URL will always be better to the user.

The second benefit for SEO purposes is that matching keywords from the title of you page and the URL will give you a boost, how much will be it is to discuss.

Here is an excellent MOZ article about the topic

https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls

Hope it helps,

Carlos

[michelledemaree]

Thanks again, MattAntonino, really appreciate it! Enjoy the rest of your Friday.

[MattAntonino]

There really isn't a higher authority than "Google said so in WMT guidelines" when it comes to SEO for your site.

I know they're looking for case study or whatnot but all I can suggest is explain that Guidelines ARE the rules, Guidelines specifically and directly cover this question. So you should follow the Guidelines.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en says "Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site."

I looked for case studies on this but search is done in words not numbers so I assume it's because it's fairly obvious that it can only help. Good luck!

[michelledemaree]

Thanks so much for your quick response, MattAntonino! Totally agree with it.

Unfortunately, that's also exactly my problem. I personally agree that it is clear and tells us exactly what we should do, and I know most (if not all) SEOs would agree with you/the above statement. My problem is that I'm trying to convince people who are not sitting with SEO every day, and if I cannot give them more than this, they simply won't prioritize it over other projects.

[MattAntonino]

I'll do the best I can, which is take you directly to the source:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76329?hl=en

"Consider organizing your content so that URLs are constructed logically and in a manner that is most intelligible to humans (when possible, readable words rather than long ID numbers)."

That's fairly clear and exactly what you're trying to get at. This article is a direct piece of the "Webmaster Guidelines" section - and should be followed where possible. This should be enough to get you across the line.

I also think most SEOs would agree that Google uses keywords in the URL to at least some extent. We know they use search with synonyms and related keywords. So if your URL contains /seo/ it's much more related to "seo" searches than /123/ is. So yes, it will help. It's hard (impossible) to quantify by how much though.