Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Where to put a page ID in a URL?
-
Hello,
My company is going to change URLs to example.com/category or example.com/product.
When we will change the URLs to product or category pages somehow we have to check whether the requested page is from category table in DB or from products table (this gives much speed to page load time).
So we have to choose how to make the different product and category pages.
Programmers said that we need to insert id to URL.So the question is: Which is the better way to place an id to an URL?
example.com/product-name?id=111
Or maybe we should use some other punctuation mark to separate id from product name?
p.s. I have read Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs by Google and it still didn't answered which is the best for all of the pages.
Somehow others solve this problem by typing only the names to the URL, but could anyone tell what that technology should be?
-
As I have seen somewhere that underscore "_" unites the names and Google looks at it like one word with no spaces.
Wouldn't it be bad for long product names?
example.com/2010_chrysler_grand_voyager_2l would be the same as write example.com/2010chryslergrandvoyager2l ?
-
Just trying to get the best out of everything
In this case, doesn't product-name-111 is all keywords for a page? My product if my product page doesn't consist of 111 it would make a mess for Google.
I can give one example that could messes up:
example.com/cars-1963And 1963 isn't a year nor it's a model number of a car, it's the ID of a catalog.
-
I would select a modified option #3 (modified in that I used all dashes)
I've seen this work. VBSEO (a vBulletin forum plugin that rewrites URLs) uses this format, where the ID is at the end of the URL. I've not seen any ill effects and this plugin has used this format for years.
Don't get too hung up on the URL structure. It's like worrying about what color to paint your walls when your house has structural issues. URLs are window dressing. They help SEO, but only slightly.
-
I would use example.com/product_name-111
I believe you need to do a mod re-write to get the URL to display the way you want it, but others will be better placed to advice you on this than I am.
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
-
Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking). I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content. My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | THandorf0 -
Will disallowing URL's in the robots.txt file stop those URL's being indexed by Google
I found a lot of duplicate title tags showing in Google Webmaster Tools. When I visited the URL's that these duplicates belonged to, I found that they were just images from a gallery that we didn't particularly want Google to index. There is no benefit to the end user in these image pages being indexed in Google. Our developer has told us that these urls are created by a module and are not "real" pages in the CMS. They would like to add the following to our robots.txt file Disallow: /catalog/product/gallery/ QUESTION: If the these pages are already indexed by Google, will this adjustment to the robots.txt file help to remove the pages from the index? We don't want these pages to be found.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andyheath0 -
If Robots.txt have blocked an Image (Image URL) but the other page which can be indexed has this image, how is the image treated?
Hi MOZers, This probably is a dumb question but I have a case where the robots.tags has an image url blocked but this image is used on a page (lets call it Page A) which can be indexed. If the image on Page A has an Alt tags, then how is this information digested by crawlers? A) would Google totally ignore the image and the ALT tags information? OR B) Google would consider the ALT tags information? I am asking this because all the images on the website are blocked by robots.txt at the moment but I would really like website crawlers to crawl the alt tags information. Chances are that I will ask the webmaster to allow indexing of images too but I would like to understand what's happening currently. Looking forward to all your responses 🙂 Malika
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Malika11 -
I have a lot of spammy links coming to my 404 page (the URLs have been removed now). Should i re-direct to Home?
I have a lot of spammy links pointing at my website according to MOZ. Thankfully all of them were for some URLs that we've long since removed so they're hitting my 404. Should i change the 404 with a 301 and Re-Direct that Juice to my home page or some other page or will that hurt my ranking?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jagdecat0 -
Should my back links go to home page or internal pages
Right now we rank on page 2 for many KWs, so should i now focus my attention on getting links to my home page to build domain authority or continue to direct links to the internal pages for specific KWs? I am about to write some articles for several good ranking sites and want to know whether to link my company name (same as domain name) or KW to the home page or use individual KWs to the internal pages - I am only allowed one link per article to my site. Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?
Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabioricotta-840380 -
Blocking Pages Via Robots, Can Images On Those Pages Be Included In Image Search
Hi! I have pages within my forum where visitors can upload photos. When they upload photos they provide a simple statement about the photo but no real information about the image,definitely not enough for the page to be deemed worthy of being indexed. The industry however is one that really leans on images and having the images in Google Image search is important to us. The url structure is like such: domain.com/community/photos/~username~/picture111111.aspx I wish to block the whole folder from Googlebot to prevent these low quality pages from being added to Google's main SERP results. This would be something like this: User-agent: googlebot Disallow: /community/photos/ Can I disallow Googlebot specifically rather than just using User-agent: * which would then allow googlebot-image to pick up the photos? I plan on configuring a way to add meaningful alt attributes and image names to assist in visibility, but the actual act of blocking the pages and getting the images picked up... Is this possible? Thanks! Leona
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HD_Leona0 -
Stuck on Page 2 - What Would You Do?!?
My site is : http://goo.gl/JgK1e My main keyword is : Plastic Bins i have been going back and forth between page 1 and 2 for this keyword and i was wondering if any of you could provide any guidance as to why i can't get on the top of page 1, and stay there... My site has been around for a while, we believe we have a great user experience, all unique, fresh content, and the lowest prices... I must be missing out on something major if I cannot get a steady page 1 ranking... Any thoughts? Thanks in advance...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850