For some, a URL is just a unique fingerprint that contains the unique location of a web page on the Internet. For an SEO expert, it contains much more information than the location of a web page. It provides informative signals that help search engines understand a page’s content, its purpose, and its target market. Like all signals, some may be weak, some may be strong, and some signals may even be missing. Here are the top 10 signs shown that the major search engines detected in the URL to determine the content of the page, who the target market and how high page position in search results.
Table of Contents
10. URLs must be 100% readable
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If you can’t read every word in your URL, neither can search engines. That’s a big problem because search engines know that people read URLs before they click, to help them understand the content of a page. Search engines can’t crack crazy, dynamically generated URLs , they don’t even try. Instead, they only read the words in the URLs, just like they read the content on your page. This helps them better understand your content, so they can connect you with your target market.
Example: If you want to buy a brown leather sofa, what URL would you click?
Correct URL: http://yourdomain.com/brown-leather-couches Incorrect URL: http://yourdomain.com/index.php?=6512524=t55=?p=127
9. Use hyphens, not underscores
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If you want to separate words in your URL, use hyphens or hyphens, rather than underscores. Google has been very clear about it. Its algorithm was written to read scripts, not underscores. If you want to rank high in the world’s largest search engines, you have to follow their rules.
Correct URL: http://yourdomain.com/brown-leather-couches
Incorrect URL: http://yourdomain.com/brown_leather_couches
8. Top content in top folders
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Search engines often regard web pages in your root folder as top-level content and perhaps even better content. So, be very careful and strategic in the way you structure your URLs. The structure of the URL can indicate the importance of a page on your site.
More authority: http://yourdomain.com/target-keyword
Less authority: http://yourdomain.com/category/subcategory/target-keyword
7. N ° C apital Cartas
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better have a great excuse to use capital letters in a URL. Capital letters confuse everyone, including people and search engines. Adding capital letters somehow encrypts your URL by making it exponentially difficult to remember. Yourdomain.com/destination-keyword is a different URL than yourdomain.com/Target-Keyword.
6. Block wrong URLs with Robots.txt
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Avoid being penalized for duplicate content by preventing search engines from indexing multiple URLs to the same content and other problematic URLs. For example, having a search feature on your site generates dynamic, duplicate URLs for the same content, based on the user’s filtered search. Block additional dynamic URLs that point to the canonical URL.
5. Add mobile URLs to a sitemap.
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Tell major search engines like Google which web pages on your site are mobile friendly on a sitemap. Pages optimized for mobile devices tend to rank higher in search results for mobile devices.
Some people say you don’t need to indicate mobile optimized pages if your site is responsive. But to be safe, many still include responsive mobile URLs in a sitemap.
Here’s Google’s recommendation on how to include mobile URLs in sitemaps.
4. Use canonical URLs
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Dynamic pages can sometimes accidentally create duplicate content , and you don’t want to be penalized for something you didn’t do intentionally, so use canonical URLs.
Here are some important ways to use canonical URLs:
Dynamic content
If you want http://yourdomain.com/brown-leather-couches to be the preferred URL, even if other URLs access this same content, add a rel = “canonical” link element in the header of each of those pages. with the same content . This will tell search engines to only index http://yourdomain.com/brown-leather-couches.
Ejemplo del elemento de enlace rel = “canonical”:
<link rel = ”canonical” href = ”http://yourdomain.com/brown-leather-couches” />
Preferred domain redirection
Avoid the possibility that Google and other search engines will think you have duplicate content. Yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com look like two different websites in the eyes of search engines. To work around this problem, configure your preferred domain redirect as yourdomain.com or www.yourdomain.com. This will redirect your non-preferred domain to your preferred domain.
How to set your preferred domain and double the power of your backlinks
Canonicalize your IP
This is another way to avoid being penalized for duplicate content. Just redirect your IP address to your preferred domain . Otherwise, search engines may think that your IP address and your website are two different websites with the exact same content.
How to handle dynamic parameters.
Tell Google and other search engines when to ignore any parameters added to your URL , such as a session id or paging. By doing this you are telling Google that http://yourdomain.com/keyword?sessionid=54 has the same content as http://yourdomain.com/keyword.
Try using the URL parameter tool in Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Upload a favicon
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The tiny icon next to your URL in a browser is a favicon. Adding one has many benefits. Search engines like Bing and Google have tried to include favicons in search results. Favicons also stand out more in browser bookmarks, which helps with brand recognition and trust.
There may be no direct SEO cause for the effects of having a favicon on your site, but there is a definite correlation. Altogether, it is better to have one.
2. 301 redirect of broken URLs
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If you must change a URL for any reason, remember that you are removing a page that Google has potentially indexed and other sites have links. You don’t want search engines to remove a high-ranking web page from search results because they can’t find your content at its old URL. Just notify the search engines by adding a 301 redirect from your old URL to your new URL.
Google’s advice on 301 redirects
1. Include the exact target keyword
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Where possible, include your exact keyword or target phrase in your URL. This is usually difficult to do on your home page, but it should be easy on your service pages or blog articles.
How to target the exact keyword “brown leather sofa”:
Great URL: http://yourdomain.com/furniture/brown-leather-couch
Accept URL: http://yourdomain.com/couches/brown-leather Bad
URL: http://yourdomain.com/color-234-couches
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