Does having a "+" in a URL hurt SEO? Would much value be gained changing it to a hyphen?
-
There's a site that contains "+" signs in the URL in order to call different information for the content on the page. Would it be better to change those to hyphens (-), or not that much value will be gained, so leave them as is?
Thanks!
-
Here is what I posted last time this came up:
I would get those re-written to dashes for a few different reasons:
- Dashes are known as the best way to separate terms in URLS
- IMO dashes are easier to read by the user, and easier to remember thus more user friendly (just my opinion though no data behind this)
- Plus signs are often used in URL encoding or in query strings, both of which are not great for users, and both of which have been thought of in the past to look somewhat "off putting" to search engines compared to dashes.
So while it might be a pain I would say go to dashes.
Also here is link someone posted last time about an article Rands wrote in 2006:
-
You should use hyphens rather than plus signs if possible.
Plus signs are a "reserved" character normally used in dynamic URLs and could cause confusion for the web crawlers which could lead to pages not getting indexed.
However, if you have been using plus signs and don't have any issues with those pages not being indexed, you can probably safely leave them in place. There are sites that use plus signs without any problem. If those pages already have lots of inbound links, you would need to do 301 redirects or use a rewrite to change the plusses to hyphens. Apparently plus signs can be recognized as separators like a hyphen, so there is probably no significant difference in regard to SEO.
So if it isn't going to be a huge hassle with redirects etc, I would recommend changing to hyphens.
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
-
To change or not to change. DO we update our HTTP page to HTTPS? especially those with basic forms (phone, email, name)??
I recently went to a conference where a speaker strongly urged us to migrate to HTTPS before January 2017. I don't see any other sites referencing to make the switch before January 2017. whats the deal? 😉
On-Page Optimization | | millenniumsi0 -
With 301 Redirects Does Changing URLs Matter?
We are redesigning our website in order to give it a more modern visual look. For the most part all the content will remain the same. Our old site is hosted on .asp so all of our current URLs look something like this: www.example.com/products/food.asp We plan on using 301 redirects in order to update every URL and remove the .asp. Since we are going to be doing 301 redirects for every existing URL anyways, does it matter from an SEO and ranking standpoint, if we also change the content and structure of the URL? For example, would we see a ranking impact if we were to change the above example URL to www.example.com/food? Obviously we want to try to retain as much link juice and ranking factors as possible during this redesign. Another issue we are seeing is with the image file names of our existing website images. We are moving to a new CMS platform (WordPress) that automatically saves images using a folder path similar to this: wp-uploads/2015-08/food. Will that change affect our SEO or ranking at all? When Google crawls an image does it care about the full path? Any insight would be much appreciated! 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Rel="canonical" Wordpress 2015 Best Practice
There are forum posts about how to insert rel="canonical" tags in Wordpress, but I've read about lots of changes in this space recently (updates to Yoast, for example). I'm having a problem with duplicate content on one of my sites, and it seems to be coming from multiple indexes of the same pages. I'll have a blog post show up under the posts, then the archives, then the tags. So, my question is, in early 2015, what are the current best practices for adding rel="canonical" tags in Wordpress? Thanks! Tim
On-Page Optimization | | TimLlew0 -
Website was given to someone else, does a "move" or something need to be performed in Webmaster Tools?
A website was given to another person for their business. None of the original webpages remain they have all been removed. There is nothing on that domain now. Is there some notification that needs to be made in webmaster tools to make Google aware of this?
On-Page Optimization | | will21120 -
How do I PERMANENTLY change an incorrect URL link with one of my keywords?
Hello, I received an “F” grade on my on-page report for one of my keywords. I noticed that the URL linked with that keyword was wrong. After changing it to the correct URL, I received an “A.” However, the change was not permanent. How do I permanently change the URL? I don’t see any “Save Changes” or “Apply Changes” button anywhere. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | jampaper0 -
Should "white label" sites be unique IP addresses?
My company is planning "white label" subsites with unique URLs. Should these sites be unique IPs in order to use them for link building?
On-Page Optimization | | theLotter0 -
Hyphens in Domain Name
I have a client who is a business broker. I have just begun working with them, and they are trying to determine the best domain name to use - they have several. business-broker-alabama.com vs businessbrokeralabama.com Which one of these has more value? I know that search engines have somewhat devalued keywords. The first one probably has a little more SEO value, but is going to be a drag in terms of marketing -- saying "business hyphen broker hyphen alabama" is going to get old for them. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | csmithal0 -
Importance of URL Structure
We are trying to restructure our onpage SEO and want to make sure we have our URLs correct. The problem is we did the URLs incorrectly in the first place and the ones we currently have are several years olds. We have some URLs such as: http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/management/prince2.asp and
On-Page Optimization | | RobertChapman
http://www.firebrandtraining.co.uk/courses/cisco/ccna_2007.asp which are not ideal but user experience aside does it make sense for us to change the URLs and use 301 redirects to the new ones or is the damage done to our natural rankings simply not worth making the change? I have read different articles saying different things, some say that URL structure has little weight (if any weight at all) on rankings while other people seem to say it is quite important. In addition we have heard that changing the URLs with a 301 redirect will cause a large drop in ranking which will take months to recover from and contrarily that 301s are now considered "ok" by Google and we shouldn't see too much change at all in our rankings. Any advice would be much appreciated.0