URL Names not so important in future?
-
I read somewhere (hard to say where with all the information about SEO and google!) that in the future, Google will put less importance on the URL name for ranking purposes. Any thoughts?
-
URLs will always be important in lots of ways;
- They are seen by users in many cases (as links, in social media and even the SERPs) and can help improve CTR.
- They are extremely important to the overall site architecture - and especially for information architecture.
- They can often become the anchor text in links.
- They help a user when browsing the site, as if they represent the structure or "level" depth (almost like breadcrumbs) is can make the navigating experience easier.
I don't think URLs are something Google looks at in a simplistic way like "oh you're URL says X keyword, we're gonna weigh that keyword more" - I think all of these factors feed into the importance of URLs and I don't see that value diminishing anytime soon.
-Dan
-
I think ever since firefox came out with the amazing bar and google became the new http they have had to rank domain names high in the SERPS, as there is always a chance that that is what you are looking for if you put it into your browser address bar.
However, it is not beyond thinking that google will rank things differently depending on how you search. Searching on a mobile phone provides different results to searching on your desktop. So why not searching from your browser location bar giving different results to searching from the google homepage? With the google homepage giving less relevance to domain names as a signal.
I am sure Google are more than capable of being data led and seeing if those things correlate and making the necessary changes.
Other ways in which domain names become less relevant are through such things as apps and social media games. Take instagram as an example. An online business that made its name before it even had a domain name. It was a solid app, searched for and shared through the mobile phone market places and then via facebook.
With the battle from facebook to essentially become your desktop and the entire internet - like AOL tried doing many years back, in which everything should be run through their systems and their framework I hope that domain names do not become obsolete as the prospect scares me a little.
First time posting here.
Figured I had to start somewhere.
-
Im sure it is possible it could devalue down the road, but Title, URL and Body are one of the easiest ways to identify if the content is relevant. Google also takes in account bounce rate so if 'title', 'url' and 'body' are targeting 'shoes', but your website is about garage install it will be able to tell immediately that your site is not relevant.
-
I can't speak for the future but late last year I changed the url structure of my site and saw a pretty significant improvement in my rankings.
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 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
Flat Structure URL vs Structured Sub-directory URL
We are finally taking our classifieds site forward and moving into a much improved URL structure, however, there is some disagreement over whether to go with a Flat URL structure or a structured sub-directory. I've browsed all of the posts and Q&A's for this going back to 2011, and still don't feel like I have a real answer. Has anyone tested this yet, or is there any consensus over ranking? I am in a disagreement with another SEO manager about this for our proposed URL structure redesign who is for it because it is what our competitors are doing. Our classifieds are geographically based, and we group by state, county, and city. Most of our traffic comes from state and county based searches. We also would like to integrate categories into the URL for some of the major search terms we see. The disagreement arises around how to structure the site. I prefer the logical sub-directory style: [sitename]/[category]/[state]/[county]/
Algorithm Updates | | newspore
mysite.com/for-sale/california/kern-county/
or
[sitename]/[category]/[county]-county-[stateabb]/
mysite.com/for-sale/kern-county-ca/ I don't mind the second, except for when you look at it in the context of the whole site: Geo Landing Pages:
mysite.com/california/
mysite.com/los-angeles-ca-90210/ Actual Search Pages:
mysite.com/for-sale/orange-ca/[filters] Detail Pages:
mysite.com/widget-type/cool-product-name/productid I want to make sure this flat structure performs better before sacrificing my analytics sanity (and ordered logic). Any case studies, tests or real data around this would be most helpful, someone at Moz must've tackled this by now!0 -
Google sets brand/domain name at the end of SERP titles
Hi all, I am experiencing that Google puts our domain name at the end of the titles in SERPs. So if ia have a title: "See our super cool website", Google would show "See our super cool website - Betxpert.com" in the SERPs Well. This is okay. Apart from the fact that i myself often put the brand name in the title AND the fact that Google mispells the site name. The brand is BetXpert with a upper case X...so when i get a SERP with "See our super cool website - BetXpert - Betxpert.com" I am annoyed 🙂 Any one out the know how to tell Google the EXACT brand name, such that they do not set a value the site owner does not want to have? -Rasmus
Algorithm Updates | | rasmusbang0 -
Did .org vs. .com SEO importance recently changed?
I have seen previous answers in the Forum about this subject but Google has seemed to have again changed the playing surface. Within the past 30 days, we have seen a huge spike in organic search returns seeming to favor .org as domain authorities. Has anyone else noticed this shift and is it just coincidence or worth factoring in? If it is a shift, will Google punish those that have .org but have used.com previously for switching the redirects to serve .org first? Thanks, Jim
Algorithm Updates | | jimmyzig0 -
Increased 404 and Blocked URL Notifications in Webmaster Tools
In the last 45 days, I am receiving an increasing number of 404 alerts in Google Webmaster Tools. When I audit the notifications, they are not "new" broken links, these are all links that have been pointing to non-existent pages for years that for some reason Google is just notifying me about them. This has also coincided with about a 30% drop in organic traffic from late April to early May. The site is www.petersons.com and its been around for a while and the site attracts a fair amount of natural links so in the 2 years I've managed the campaign I've done very little link-building. I'm in the process of setting up redirects for these urls but why is Google now notifying me of years old broken links and could that be one of the reasons for my drop in traffic. My second issue is my I am being notified that I am blocking over 8,000 urls in my Robots file when I am not. I attached a screenshot. Here is a link to a screenshot. http://i.imgur.com/ncoERgV.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | CUnet0 -
Is it allowed to put a word in all domains URLs to get higher in SERP?
Hello, What good or bad could happen if someone put the same keyword in all site's URL's? (i.e. I would be selling cars and my domain isn't included any word cars, so i put all of my pages in one folder like domain.com/cheap-cars/etc)
Algorithm Updates | | komeksimas0 -
How do I rank multiple pages for my busness/domain name?
When someone searches for our business's name (which is also the domain name) we have one listing (with sitelinks) at the top - however I would also like to rank 2nd, 3rd and 4th for this term. Any suggestions on how this might be done? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | CaBStudios0 -
Plural vs non-plural domain name
I'm sure this question has been answered and asked a 1,000 different ways but what would be the best domain name to use in the long term (2 years +)? The plural versions (examples.com) which has a decent domain authority and is ranking 1st in Google search results yet has less search volume or the singular version (example.com) that has no current SEO value for the search term that we'd like to target however the singular version of the keyword has a much higher search volume? so basically will it be better to have the exact match that has more volume or the plural form that has better rankings after 2 years of doing SEO for each domain? My guess is that using (examples.com) with the better domain authority and tightening the grip on its dominance in Google will still be more effective than having the exact match domain with more search volume for that keyword while performing the same amount of SEO even after two years. Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | ydop0