URL Structure - Is it important for SEO?
URL structure can be the making or breaking of a website. Some form of SEO can be found everywhere, whether it be what you call your files or where you position a file on a server, getting all of this correct is essential.
Why is it important?
URL structure is important for SEO due to the fact that not only do search engines look at the URL, but humans use it too. If I was to visit a website that had an ‘About SEO’ web page, I’d be much more likely to remember it or bookmark it if it was called: www.seocompany.com/about-seo, instead of www.seocompany.com/page3756.
There is no description within the second example URL which would definitely put someone off. One more point to make on this is if someone has visited and logs off their machine then wishes to revisit the page there is a good chance they will have a look in their history. If you use short, descriptive names then they can easily find it. If using ‘page3756′ they will not have a clue what it is and in most cases ignore it.
The next point to make is use short names. This is for both human and search engine. A search engine only looks at a certain number of characters therefore large URL’s should not be used from an SEO perspective.
For example:
www.companyname.com/this-is-the-first-level/second-level/file-name-etc.html
may be indexed but the search engine may have only ‘looked’ at these characters:
www.companyname.com/this-is-the-first-level/second
Keeping filenames, thus the URL short is essential and goes hand in hand with any other SEO technique employed on a website.
Hyphens vs Underscore
When separating filenames always use a hyphen. This is due to the search engines seeing a hyphened word as two separate words instead of the one. You wouldn’t type in ‘post_office’, you would type in ‘post office’.
Summary
Understand how humans and search engines work and name your files and structure your Url and website to coincide. Everything has an impact in SEO, even the smallest details.
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