Page URLS
You want to make sure your page is indexed correctly, shows in the search results, and will entice a real person to click. That means you need as much information in that URLs as possible. Page URLs provide information to both human readers and search engine indexing programs.
A few content management systems, shopping carts, and blogging tools will create URLs friendly to only the computer. Don’t settle for a URL you can’t remember after seeing it. If a friend sent me a link to www.yourcompany.com/dir4/page53a3?data9902.htm I would not click on it. I’d suspect a phishing scam. To give humans and search engines a better clue to what is on a page, make the URL keyword rich and informative. I’m much more likely to click on a link to www.fuzziercats.com/funny/calico-and-polar-bear.htm and the search engines are more likely to list it and rank it appropriately.
Here are three examples from a search for “green cowboy boots” shown in the reverse order that they appeared on a search results page. All have pretty good titles, but the last has the far better URL.
From the URL above I can assume I’d be buying form NRSWorld, which I’ve never heard of, and then I’d get to some page related to TWIST, whatever that is.
You’ll notice that my search terms are shown in bold font in both the page’s title and URL below. That bold text draws the eye and provides another confirmation to the reader that this is a page highly likely to meet my interests.
The URL is very long in the example below, but it tells me all I need to know. And it uses hyphens, not underscores, to separate words. This makes it easier for me to read and for search engines to locate the keywords. It also uses only lowercase letters, making it less likely for me to make an error if I copy down the URL and then retype it.
The only problem I see with Shepler’s URL is that it does not encourage me to copy and paste it into an email. It’s just too long for that even though it’s very informative. Once I get to the page I find that I can share it on Facebook or Twitter, but unfortunately it doesn’t provide me with a email option. You’ll have to balance these user needs with your own.
If you feel like you’re stuck with unreadable URLs, refer your webmaster to URL Structure at Google’s Webmaster Central for information on how to rewrite your dynamic URLs to static ones.
Your domain name
Why doesn’t my domain name say anything about what I do? I took the chance on using my name as the keyword instead of SEO or Web content. That’s because I have a highly recognizable name and I was getting in-person referrals by name. I knew people would remember my name and it’s unique enough that I have no competition for it. This not how I’d recommend most people choose their domain name.
Choosing a name that reflects your brand and includes a keyword can work well. I could have chosen Bullwinkle SEO, for example.
Just be sure to make it easy to read out loud and easy to spell. I never heard the word etsy before a friend started selling her glasswork on the site, but I could repeat and remember the word. Avoid hyphens. Make it memorable. That matters more than having a keyword in the domain name. Google indicates that it is now giving less weight to domain name keywords. Other search engines will probably follow suit. So choose a name for your audience, not the search engines.
Should you purchase a domain that won’t expire for several years? Google’s Webmaster Central response to that question indicates that it really doesn’t much matter.
Is it too late to change my URLs?
Look at your analytics and see if you have traffic to the pages with URLs you want to change. No traffic; no problem. If you do have traffic, you don’t want to lose it.
Create 301 redirects for any page with traffic that you make a change to. This will keep people from following a link and getting an error page and they are not hard to create. It will also prevent directories from automatically removing your page from a listing because it’s broken. It’s important to note, however, that Google does not move all your page’s rank from the old page to the new one when you use a 301 redirect. You need to balance the possible loss of a small bit of rank with the probability of more clicks by users and more accurate indexing of the page. If your URLs are a jumble of numbers and letters, I recommend making the change.
Contact the owners of the sites that link to the page you’re changing and let them know you’ve created a more memorable URL for the page. Ask them to update their link to your site. Hopefully this will give that site owner a chance to review your site again and add more links. It’s a chance to suggest the words they use to link to your site (Important SEO Hint: ask for a keyword-rich link like “quality bee supplies in Ohio” rather than just “www.KneesBees.com.”) It’s another chance to market your site.
