How careful do you need to be about changes to readable URLs?
-
We are moving to Sitecore where the standard out the box is that if you change page title it amends the URL as well.
I am worried that this will lead to SEO issues and am considering whether we need to get it locked down so that if the page title is amended (only in a minor way) it does not also change the URL.
I have never worked with readable URLs before - what are the implications of the URL not exactly matching the wording of the page title?
-
I use Sitecore and it doesn't change the URL if the title is changed. In my case, you first enter the name of the item, which becomes the URL, and then you go on to add the title and content and so forth. (But this may have been an add-on--I wasn't here when it was set up.)
If yours changes the URL if you change the title, I'd definitely get that fixed. You don't want a nice outside link to get broken because someone decides to tweak a title and changes the URL!
In Sitecore you can easily add aliases however, in case your URL gets changed and you want the old one to still be available (just be sure to add the appropriate canonical--that is a custom field you'd have to have added, or at least it was in my case).
There is also a "rename" option you can use to change the URL to whatever you want, again just be sure there weren't any good links to the old URL or if there were, use alias and canonical as above.
And as others have said, the title and URL do not need to match exactly, but they should be closely related.
-
"you don't want to go changing your page titles frequently"
Very good thought too Andy!
-
You don't need to worry about the page title and URL matching exactly. Google doesn't give any inherent SEO boost to sites that have URL's and titles that match.
That said, there are most certainly benefits to having a good URL structure. It will help with usability and can help with click through rates, which in a roundabout way, can impact your positions.
An an example, if you look at the following, what do they say to you?
- ../armani/emporioarmani/suits <-- This tells me all I need to know about the page I am on
- ../product/cat63/23487HA.html <-- This tells me absolutely nothing useful
"...am considering whether we need to get it locked down so that if the page title is amended (only in a minor way) it does not also change the URL."
This would be fine to do. However, you don't want to go changing your page titles frequently. Pick a format that you are happy with and try to stick with it. Only change this if something significant on the page also changes that would call for rewording.
-Andy
-
Hi,
If you're changing the Page Title to represent an accurate keyword for that page (or what that page is about), then I would suggest actually changing the URL (or in this case allowing the URL) to represent that targeted keyword.
For example, I have a page about an alzheimer's game for people diagnosed with alzheimer's. My page title will be "Fun Alzheimer's Game for Loving Family Members with Alzheimer's." My URL may be "fun-alzheimers-game-for-family-members. (something along those lines - I am creating something here that may not be accurate of course).
So you would want your URL and Title Tag to be not necessarily be exactly the same (although plenty of mine are) but very, very similar to tell search engines what this page is about.
Keep in mind that if you do change the URL (from changing the Title Tag), to do a 301 redirect. That is to tell search engines that the old URL now is this new URL.
I hope this helps.
Cole
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
-
URL change - Sitemap update / redirect
Hi everyone Recently we performed a massive, hybrid site migration (CMS, URL, site structure change) without losing any traffic (yay!). Today I am finding out that our developers+copy writers decided to change Some URLs (pages are the same) without notifying anyone (I'm not going into details why). Anyhow, some URLs in site map changed, so old URLs don't exist anymore. Here is the example: OLD (in sitemap, indexed): https://www.domain.com/destinations/massachusetts/dennis-port NEW: https://www.domain.com/destinations/massachusetts/cape-cod Also, you should know that there is a number of redirects that happened in the past (whole site) Example : Last couple years redirections: HTTP to HTTPS non-www to www trailing slash to no trailing slash Most recent (a month ago ) Site Migration Redirects (URLs / site structure change) So I could add new URLs to the sitemap and resubmit in GSC. My dilemma is what to do with old URL? So we already have a ton of redirects and adding another one is not something I'm in favor of because of redirect loops and issues that can affect our SEO efforts. I would suggest to change the original, most recent 301 redirects and point to the new URL ( pre-migration 301 redirect to newly created URL). The goal is not to send mixed signals to SEs and not to lose visibility. Any advice? Please let me know if you need more clarification. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bgvsiteadmin0 -
IP Canonicalization - Is this needed?
Hi Wondering if we need to worry about IP Canonicalization via htaccess and if this is really required? and does would it have a big impact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
How to change URL structure in google webmasters
Is there any way to ask google to indexed the website in following URL structure abc.com/category/postname (I have this structure on my website) But Currently google indexed my website posts as - abc.com/postname/category How I can tell google to follow the right structure?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Changing my pages URL name - HELP NEEDED FAST
Hello, I need to change the URL name for a few pages on my site. The site was launched just recently, so it has no obvious ranking and traffic. My question is, what is the best practice for changing/deleting the page name? after deleting the page, should I go to Google webmaster tool and use URL Removal and remove the old page? I know that I have to also create a new XML sitemap file, but not sure about the old pages in google search result Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mdmoz0 -
How to deal with URLs and tabbed content
Hi All, We're currently redesigning a website for a new home developer and we're trying to figure out the best way to deal with tabbed content in the URL structure. The design of the site at the moment will have a page for a development and within that you can select your house type, then when on the house type page there will be tabs displayed for the user to see things like the plot map, availability and pricing, specifications, etc. The way our development team are looking at handling this is for the URL to use a hashtag or a query string at the end of it so we can still land users on these specific tabs for PPC for example. My question is really, has anyone had any experience with this? Any recommendations on how to best display the urls for SEO? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J_Sinclair0 -
URL categorization / subfolders
Hi Mozzers, We're currently in the process of a website redesign with new CMS and have the opportunity to change URL and structure. I would love some opinions as to what the best practise will be. A quick prerequisite, the website is entirely about France. French property, living, holidays, forum - everything. Therefore, we're unsure of the usage of the word France/French. Presently, we're running Classic ASP which allows for one subfolder then dynamic article ID. In my examples, I will take our activity holidays URL. At present this is /france-activity-holidays/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=12345. We know that DisplayArticle.asp?ID=12345 will simply become [article-title], however, its the preceding subfolders I would like some help with. Here are our thoughts on the options available. Can you please vote as to which you think is the best? /france-activity-holidays/ (one subfolder per category, as at present) /france/holidays/activity/ (always have a first subfolder with the word france) /holidays-to-france/activity-holidays/ (france in the primary subfolder) /holidays/activity-holidays-france/ (france in the secondary subfolder) /holidays/activity/ (because the whole website is about France, it is redundant to have /france/) /French-holidays/activity/ My gut feeling is either number 2 or 5. Concise, good for UX, OK for SEO. However, there is very little information around that is relevant to our sector. Thanks in advance! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Horizon0 -
URL Structure
URL i have to use targeted keyword on all sub page domain or not for example now i am using url like this format fundingtype.html litigation-funding.html legal-funding.html financingservices.html process.html and if i re-write all url with targated keyword like this format lawsuit-loans-fundingtype.html lawsuit-loans-litigation-funding.html lawsuit-loans-legal-funding.html lawsuit-loans-financingservices.html lawsuit-loans-process.html so which type URL are more effective for best SEO ??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JulieWhite0 -
New Website. Changing TLD or not?
Hi, At my company we are making a new website because the days of the old one are numbered. We already decided that the folder structure will be changed so we have more "clean" url's. Now we also would like to change from .net/nl to .nl . Since we already are redirecting all url's (>10.000), we think this is the moment to switch the TLD. What do you guys think? Is their anyone who has some kind of experience/tip they would like to share?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO_ACSI0