Using keywords in my URL: Doing a redirect to /keyword
-
My website in "On Page Grade" received an A.Anyway, I only have 1 thing to optimize:_"Use Keywords in your URL__Using your targeted keywords in the URL string adds relevancy to your page for search engine rankings, assists potential visitors identify the topic of your page from the URL, and provides SEO value when used as the anchor text of referring links."_My website is ranking in top10 for a super high competitive keyword and all my others competitors have the keyword on their domain, but not for my URL.Since I can't change my domain for fixing this suggestion, I would like to know what do you think about doing a 301 redirect from / to mydomainname.com/keyword/So the index of my website would be the /keyword.I don't know if this can make a damage to my SERP for the big change ir it would be a great choice.
-
I agree with Ryan. The one thing to consider is whether redirects will help or hurt your site. Even websites that are appropriately redirected lose some link equity in the process. See Matt Cutts' video here which says that roughly 10-15% of PageRank is lost through redirects and outgoing links. Therefore, if the site has existed using the format domain.com/post-name for a long time and attracted links to those URLs, then the small benefit you get from redirecting to domain.com/keyword/post-name may be outweighed by the natural loss of link equity.
-
That's pretty far down the list of things that would improve your site's rankings so I'd ignore it at this point. Plus, you'd be redirecting a new creation that would have nearly zero rank value.
Instead I'd focus on getting links from a greater diversity of locations (more internationalization) and try to get some great PR as well. Plug your competitors into OSE and see where they're beating you in the numbers there as well as securing links from sources you're missing via the Link Intersect tab in the Link Opportunities part of OSE. Cheers!
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
-
News site and duplicate/cannibalism/old
Hey everybody. I am working with a handful of medical news websites and some of these sites are rather large. I am noticing/suspecting there is some cannibalism going on here. How do news sites deal with this? Do they noindex the old stuff? Update the old stuff instead of writing a new piece all together? Curious what to do!
On-Page Optimization | | HashtagHustler0 -
Advice about subpages/submenus
I am working on some pages on my site (www.crmi-online.com) and am curious as to the pros/cons of subpages/submenus. The challenge I face is that I feel like I am creating too many pages that are nearly the same which may result in way too many submenus/subpages. Is it better to make a main page heading and hyperlink to related service page vs creating a subpage for it? (OR) Have the main page heading and multiple subpages even if the copy is very close to other pages. This is the area I am having trouble with: Services > Office Automation>Workflow>Electronic Document Management>AP Processing>HR Onboarding Thanks, I hope this makes sense.
On-Page Optimization | | CRMI0 -
Is using hyphens in a URL to separate words good practice?
Hi guys, I have a client who wants to use a hyphen to separate two words in the URL to make each work stand out. Is is good or bad practice to use a hyphen in a URL and will it affect rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Our urls for adwords are slightly different from current urls presented on site (weused htaccess to help create shorter urls). How important is it that the adwords url match the sitemap url for keywords on those pages?
Hello, We have dynamic urls that we have made into short urls through htaccess and code manipulation. Some of our adwords urls are different from our page urls - for example a) Latest version of page www.abc.com/x-y-z.html b) Previous version of url www.abc.com/x+y+z.html c) raw original version www.abc.com/yyy/zzz?category=X&Product-code=Y etc etc. Would my ranking for keywords on the page improve if I diligently made all of them the same? They all go to the same page even now, and no 404 errors or anything. Thanks Sam
On-Page Optimization | | samgold0 -
Sorry, but that URL is inaccessible
Our site is all on the https protocol so every time I use the on-page grader it tells me the link is unavailable. What can we do? When I use the http protocol (which is 301 redirected to the https) it still gives me the same message.
On-Page Optimization | | whiskeyfl1 -
Should you use long tail keyword phrases in page names
for example if I was trying to rank for "spokane furnace repair" is it good or bad to name the page something like "spokane-furnace-repair.html"
On-Page Optimization | | Superflys0 -
Wordpress pages URL's redirection.
I was checking W3C Markup Validation and in report it was shown that that pages (not post or any other URL's just PAGES) at investmentcontrarians.com are 301 redirected. e.g. original URL "http://www.investmentcontrarians.com/debt-crisis" which is redirected to "http://www.investmentcontrarians.com/debt-crisis/" I know that its not that serious issue, but still want to know why only pages are being redirected and how can we avoid it.
On-Page Optimization | | NumeroUnoWebSolutions0 -
301 internal redirects
Hello, I have a lot of low quality pages on my site, many of which have very similar URLs and cover similar topics. I want to tidy up my site by using 301 redirects as Rand suggests here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization 1. As a rough rule of thumb, how many internal 301 redirects is too many? 2. Can lots be to the homepage if they're relevant? (I could have as many as 30) Thanks, Kevin
On-Page Optimization | | KMack0