Long or Short URLs. Who's Coming to Dinner?
-
This has been discussed on the forums in some regard.
My situation.
Example 1 Long Keyword URL:
www.abctown.com/keyword-for-life-helping-keywords-everywhere-rank-better
Example 2 Short Keyword URL:
In both examples I want to improve rankings for the "keyword" phrase. My current URL is example 1. And I've landed a page one ranking in Google (7) with that URL. In attempts to improve rankings further (top 5), I was toying with the idea of going simpler with all my URLs in favor of the example 2 model.
Might this method help or hurt my current rankings? In recent articles I've read it seems that going with the simpler more human approach to my SEO efforts.
Any thought would be appreciated.
Cheers,
-
Agreed. The risk of losing juice from a redirect would keep me from moving forward. The only way that I would consider redirecting the old page is if the new page provides better and more relevant/current content.
If you don't plan on improving the content and are only using duplicate content then there is no need to change the page or URL.
-
If this was on my site I would not change the URL.
You might gain a little from having a better URL but you might lose a little by doing a redirect. Maybe you would lose more from the redirect than you gain from the short URL.
So, I would start using better URLs going forward and spend the time savings on new content.
-
Yes, as I mentioned above, in order to keep page authority (at least most of it) and ranking, you will want to 301 the page.
-
Thanks for the input! Great advise.
In the above examples, if I decided to move to a shorter, simpler URL for page abctown.com/keyword-for-life-helping-keywords-everywhere-rank-better to abctown.com/keyword
Would you setup the 301 from the current page URL to the simpler one or the new simple URL to the current URL???
Appreciate the help!
-
I try to make the URL match the most important keyword that I hope to rank for.
-
Test, test, test.
It seems that the general rule of thumb on old URLs redirecting to new ones is that you will lose some of the linking value in the redirect.
But I must agree with Richard Getz, in that you may want a middle ground. You certainly shouldn't over kill KWs in the URL and I would advise never using the Keyword twice the way you have in Example 1.
-
This answer comes right from Rand himself (and a few other answers), as I just stumbled upon it in Quora yesterday:
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-permalink-structure-for-SEO
And to add my two cents, as far as rankings, I don't think you can credit the URL alone for a #1 page ranking. I would construct your URL as Rand suggests and focus your on-page optimization efforts in a holistic manner.
-
I'd love to see if someone has tests to this effect. I have silly long urls (mostly because I designed them before I knew anything about SEO.) But, I kind of feel that they help me.
My philosophy is that if I am targeting long tail traffic then having a url like, mydomain.com/questions-about-blue-widgets-and-where-to-purchase-them is good. But, if I have an article that I want at the top of the serps for a particular competetive term then I would go for something like mydomain.com/blue-widgets.
I've heard people say that BING likes shorter urls...not sure if it is true though.
-
I would vote for middle ground here on future pages, and questions on current page metrics.
www.abctown.com/keyword-for-life
And then lengthen the Title to the full title of the page.
Does the current page have many inbound links? If so, doing a 301 will loos some of that juice. Can you get the inbound links re-pointed? If so, then 301 the page and get the old links to point to the new page.
If not, and this page has a high authority, then you will take a hit on the move, at least for the short term. But building more inbound links to the new page will resolve this.
Also, if you do move the page, I would push it back out on your social network to get the SEs attention and build fresh links back to the new page. Dr. Pete recently wrote about how the canonical tag is respected by Facebook and Twitter, so they might then respect the 301 also.
In short, I would make the change as the shorter URL would be better in my opinion.
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
-
Avoid landing page redirects C (75) SERVER HIGH What's this mean?
HI we have a wordpress website with a chain of redirected urls? one is with www. the other without? How do I found out where this is? or what could be causing it? Any help much appreciated 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | KellyDSD861 -
Will shortening down the amount of text on my pages affect it's SEO performance?
My website has several pages with a lot of text that becomes pretty boring. I'm looking at shortening down the amount of copy on each page but then within the updated, shortened copy, integrating more target keywords naturally. Will shortening down the current copy have a negative effect on my SEO performance?
On-Page Optimization | | Liquid20150 -
Website redesign and it's impact on ranking
Hey Everyone, I have had a website in place for over 7 years and I am now at the point where I need to implement a redesign in order to sell our product more effectively. -URL's will stay the same
On-Page Optimization | | Justin45
-Content will change but be very similar page-to-page
-Title & Meta tags will remain the same I'm planning on taking the site from a non-backend site to a wordpress site so the navigation will change. Does anyone foresee that this change will have any dramatic effect on site ranking? Thank You!0 -
Should I buy an established domain that has lost it's high PR due to being offline for several months?
I'm considering purchasing a domain that has sat idle for several months. It was a company's domain that they have owned since the mid1990's but they went out of business. Previously, it had a PR 5 but has since lost it's PR as it has sat 'inactive' with a 'server not found' warning for the past several months. That being said, is there any point in buying the domain (for SEO purposes)? Is there any recourse with Google to try and re-establish the site's credibility or would I be starting over from scratch?
On-Page Optimization | | martybuch230 -
ECommerce URL's
This is based on a clothing retailer, eCommerce site. In an effort to reduce the length of our product names, we are considering removing terms like long-sleeve, short-sleeve, etc., but leaving that information in the URL. Now, the concern is that we would lose some traction in the SERP's if those descriptive words are left out as the product name is also our page title. Then I think keywords as broad as long-sleeve shirt wouldn't serve us well anyways. One idea we have is that the alt tag on the product image could still display the longer product name that would include long-sleeve, etc. thus having the keyword on the product page. Any ideas or suggestions? Hope this is clear. Seems redundant from a user standpoint to state long-sleeve, etc. in every product name. Thanks - your answers are always so helpful!
On-Page Optimization | | kennyrowe0 -
Replacing "_" with "-" in url, results in new url?
We ran SEOmoz's "On-Page Optimization" tool on a url which contains the character "_". According to the tool: "Characters which are less commonly used in URLs may cause problems with accessibility, interpretation and ranking in search engines. It is considered a best practice to stick to standard URL structures to avoid potential problems." "Rewrite the URL to contain only standard characters." Therefore we will rewrite the url, replacing "_" with "-". Will search engines consider the "-" url a different one? Do we need to 301 the old url to the new one? Thanks for your help!
On-Page Optimization | | gerardoH0 -
Long URL in listing job portal
Hello I have job portal and I am listing job offers by: regions, position, sector, language skill For example, when user searchs job in Bratislava, Programmer, information technology, english. My URL is www.presbium.sk/bratislava/pragrammer/information-technology/english Title:Job in Bratislava, Programmer, Information technology, english I know, that URL is too long and no good for SEO. Is it solution? When user chooses max. 2 items for example: www.presbium.sk/bratislava/programmer/ than I put in every next links atribute nofollow and google will index only pages with max. 2 items: www.presbium.sk/bratislava/ or www.presbium.sk/programmer/ or www.presbium.sk/bratislava/programmer/ but not www.presbium.sk/bratislava/protrammer/english/, because english link has atribut nofollow. And I want to ask, what is the best solution for SEO when I am listing job offers by regions, position, sector, language skill and I have than long URL and Title www.presbium.sk/bratislava/pragrammer/information-technology/english Title:Job in Bratislava, Programmer, Information technology, english
On-Page Optimization | | PeterSEO0 -
Tool for Generating Sitemap/ URL List
HI, I'm looking for a tool that'll generate a URL list for a site. I looked at this thread here http://www.seomoz.org/q/online-sitemap-generator which came up when I searched for sitemap generator. However, I don't need a sitemap per se, and I don't need to submit it to Google - just a list of pages is what I need.If it updated automatically, that would be useful as well. Anyone know of a tool, on or offline? Or anyone used Xenu and know if it's what I'm looking for? Or is there a simple solution that I'm missing? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | 5225Marketing0