Will properly encoded & signs hurt or help me?
-
Hello friends,
Will properly encoding a url hurt my ranking after having it improperly coded? I want to change my & symbols to &
If I go from:
http://www.example.com/product.php?attachment=pins&model=coolTo:
http://www.example.com/product.php?attachment=pins&model=coolWill I get hurt if I make the leap?
-
Properly encoding a URL will not hurt your ranking. In fact, it is a good practice to properly encode URLs because it can help ensure that they are properly interpreted by web browsers and other systems.
The & symbol is used to separate parameters in a URL. When a URL is not properly encoded, the & symbol can be interpreted as the start of a new parameter, which can cause the URL to be incorrectly interpreted. By encoding the & symbol as &, you can ensure that the URL is properly interpreted and that all of the parameters are correctly associated with the correct values.
There is no risk of being penalized or otherwise negatively impacted in terms of search rankings by properly encoding a URL. It is simply good practice to ensure that your URLs are properly formatted and can be correctly interpreted by the systems that use them.
-
Thanks! I dodged a bullet. I was going to change all my urls with an & to & the other day, but I decided to ask here first. I'm glad I did. These are very old urls too, maybe 15 years old. I'll just let it be, they rank great.
-
Changing URLs in any way will hurt your rankings - the process of redirecting the old URL to the new one causes a loss of equity which then has to gradually be rebuilt.
That said, for new URLs, I would say the only relevant consideration is how the URL will appear in search results and browsers as readable, or not, to human users.
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
-
Will skipping <H> tags affect your SEO?
Will skipping <H> tags on a page have any impact on your SEO, e.g. skipping a <H2> so your page has a <H1> and then goes to a <H3>? Obviously a page must have a <H1>, but does it matter if you skip other headings?
Technical SEO | | ciehmoz0 -
Only fraction of the AMP pages are indexed
Back in June, we had seen a sharp drop in traffic on our website. We initially assumed that it was due to the Core Update that was rolled out in early June. We had switched from http to https in May, but thought that should have helped rather than cause a problem. Until early June the traffic was trending upwards. While investigating the issue, I noticed that only a fraction (25%) of the AMP pages have been indexed. The pages don't seem to be getting indexed even though they are valid. Accordingly to Google Analytics too, the percentage of AMP traffic has dropped from 67-70% to 40-45%. I wonder if it is due to the indexing issue. In terms of implementation it seems fine. We are pointing canonical to the AMP page from the desktop version and to the desktop version from the AMP page. Any tips on how to fix the AMP indexing issue. Should I be concerned that only a fraction of the AMP pages are indexed. I really hope you can help in resolving this issue.
Technical SEO | | Gautam1 -
Do long UTM codes hurt SEO?
Since most UTM codes/URLs are longer than 70ish characters, is this hurting my SEO? If it is, how can I solve the problem while still using a UTM code? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Cassie_Ransom0 -
Using the £ sign in meta title
Is it a bad idea to include a £sign in my meta title? It currently has a price incentive in it. Does Google not like this from organic traffic titles/ meta descriptions? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | EdLongley0 -
Affiliate Url & duplicate content
Hi i have checked passed Q&As and couldn't find anything on this so thought I would ask.
Technical SEO | | Direct_Ram
I have recently noticed my URLS adding the following to the end: mydomain.com/?fullweb=1 I cant seem to locate where these URLS are coming from and how this is being created? This is causing duplicate content on google. I wanted to know ig anyone has had any previous experience with something like this? If anyone has any information on this it would be a great help. thanks E0 -
Dedicated ip helpful for seo
I read somewhere a while back that having a dedicated ip address was helpful for seo if this true or just another rumor? Also I read you should purchase your domain name for multiple yrs, what do you guys think?
Technical SEO | | TinaGammon0 -
Please help me critique my friends site
Hi All, I've regularly helped others on this forum when they've asked for tips on how to improve a specific site's SEO. Now I'm asking for the favour in return 🙂 My friend has come to me with a site (http://www.swishplastic.com.au) and asked me to help with SEO and on-page optimisation. I've got a few of my own ideas but there may be a few key things I'm overlooking. If anyone could give a few pointers, it would be much appreciated! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | bradkrussell0 -
Is the Sandbox Real? Need Help!
To start, I'm very new at this so I've likely made a ton of mistakes but here is the breakdown of what's happened/what's been done to my site. I own a wedding photography company which was based in Portland, we decided about six months prior that we wanted to relocate to San Diego. It was too soon to optimize our website for our new town of San Diego so I created a brand new site. It was born around June 2011. It looks just like the old site but all the content is different (different titles, re-uploaded images, text, etc was optimized for San Diego). What may be my pitfall is I imported our blog posts from the old site to the new site and we continued to keep both blogs live (writing the post in one, importing to the other). San Diego site: http://continuumweddings.com Old Site (now optimized for LA): http://continuumphotography.com From there I began link building. I signed up for the SEO Scheduler and began making the changes suggested there. It told me to sign up for Linxboss, and I did it. Other than that, my links have been build naturally and I have quite a few of them, definitely enough to compete with my top competitors. At one point I was #3 for "San Diego Wedding Photographer" and I stayed there for a couple weeks. Then I began to drop. Now I'm somewhere on page 10. I've read a lot of articles on here and I know I have a lot of things potentially hurting me. Site age, Duplicate content, etc. I'm just not sure why I dropped (still rank on 1st page in Yahoo & Bing) and what I should do about it. I tend to get overwhelmed and every post I read seems to talk about something new I may have done wrong. I'm willing to put in the time to fix this; I just need to know where my time is best spent.
Technical SEO | | mrsmelmitch0