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  4. Are the prepositions and separate letters in URL bad for website optimization?

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Are the prepositions and separate letters in URL bad for website optimization?

On-Page Optimization
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  • adrecom
    adrecom Subscriber last edited by Apr 14, 2016, 12:23 PM

    Is it ok for website optimization to use prepositions and separate letters in URL ?

    Examples: -i-series ; -salad-with-avocado etc.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • HiveDigitalInc
      HiveDigitalInc @Luis-Pereira last edited by Sep 9, 2016, 11:37 AM Sep 9, 2016, 11:37 AM

      Thanks Ipegiro...  My point exactly on saying "unless they are creating value within the url"...  as obviously "bunny-on-stool" has a completely different meaning than "bunny-stool"..

      Cheers

      -Jake

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Luis-Pereira
        Luis-Pereira last edited by Sep 9, 2016, 8:18 AM Sep 9, 2016, 8:18 AM

        Reducing the url lenght will be a best pratice, however my adivice is to alwways put yourself as a user, the dumbest user you could be.

        Which one is the best for your users    e.g.  bunny-on-stool  or bunny-stool

        Google will ignore hyfens and stopwords (the, a, on, ....)

        HiveDigitalInc 1 Reply Last reply Sep 9, 2016, 11:37 AM Reply Quote 0
        • HiveDigitalInc
          HiveDigitalInc last edited by Apr 14, 2016, 5:03 PM Apr 14, 2016, 5:03 PM

          Typically you want to minimize url length by removing stop words, prepositions, etc. unless they are creating value within the URL.      e.g.  bunny-on-stool  vs. bunny-stool

          I wouldn't go as far as to say it is bad for SEO, but there are some schools of thought that minimizing the number of words in a URL "concentrates" relevance around those terms remaining.   That being said, I'm confident Google already ignores common stop words and phrases, and this isn't something I would go about changing in an existing URL structure.

          You'll notice some sites, such as wordpress, by default remove the prepositions, etc. from the URLs.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • GlobeRunner
            GlobeRunner last edited by Apr 14, 2016, 1:05 PM Apr 14, 2016, 1:05 PM

            Yes, it's perfectly fine. It used to be that you actually needed to use hyphens to separate words in the URL (so search engines could understand) but now you don't need to do that.

            So, it is OK to use hyphens in URLs.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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