Creating pages as exact match URL's - good or over-optimization indicator?
-
We all know that exact match domains are not getting the same results in the SERP's with the algo changes Google's been pushing through. Does anyone have any experience or know if that also applies to having an exact match URL page (not domain).
Example:
keyword: cars that start with AWhich way to go is better when creating your pages on a non-exact domain match site:
www.sample.com/cars-that-start-with-a/ that has "cars that start with A" as the
or
www.sample.com/starts-with-a/ again has "cars that start with A" as the
Keep in mind that you'll add more pages that start the exact same way as you want to cover all the letters in the alphabet. So:
www.sample.com/cars-that-start-with-a/
www.sample.com/cars-that-start-with-b/
www.sample.com/cars-that-start-with-C/or
www.sample.com/starts-with-a/
www.sample.com/starts-with-b/
www.sample.com/starts-with-c/Hope someone here at the MOZ community can help out. Thanks so much
-
Hi Curtis,
Thanks for your reply. Well to be more specific the domain would be:
freecarfinder.com/cars-that-start-with-a/The domain is new so it has not authority whatsoever. The domain is not that long but it's not really short neither. The content on the page is pretty small where the exact keyword that's in the URL is mentioned in the heading 1 and twice on a small piece of text that explains how to use the page to search for results.
Totally agree best practise is to test it out. I do see that our competition is using /starts-with/a and is ranking really well with it. Maybe the best option is to create half of the pages using the exact keyword in the URL and half with /starts-with-a/ to see which one performs better?
-
Unless your domain is really strong on car keywords I would include car in the URL, assuming the URL is not that long. Although Google is moving away from exact match into symantic search it seems to be happening slowly and we have certainly seen improvements in ranking by having some exact matches. So I think as longs as you don't have the exact same phrase in all places on the page there isn't much danger. However, the best pratice is to test and learn, make the change and see if it improves the ranking.
Hope that helps, let me know if you need anything more?
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
-
What do you think of this "SEO software" that uses Rand's "proven method" ?
I saw an ad on Search Engine Roundtable and the call to action was... "What is the #1 metric that Google uses to rank websites?" I thought, "I gotta know that!". (I usually don't click ads but this one tempted me.) So I clicked in and saw a method "proven by Rand Fishkin" that will "boost the rankings of your website". This company has software that will use Rand's proven method (plus data from another unattributed test to boost the rankings of your website). I am not going to use this software. The video made my BS meter ring. But if you want to see it.... http://crowdsearch.me/special-backdoor/ Rather than use this "software", I would suggest using kickass title tags that deliver the searcher to kickass content. That has worked really well for me for years. Great title tags and great content will produce the same results. The bonus for you is that the great content will give you a real website.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | EGOL1 -
What are legit ways to raise up you're ranking for a new website?
I have a wallpaper website that i just made and bought a template that looks fine for the site so far for a month now, and i wanted to know what steps i cant take to better rank my site and build some traffic along the way. I use only specific directories, not sure how to get a press release done and also link back to other sites from pages that get a decent amount of traffic where i can leave a link to it, of course not leaving any type of spammy looking comments. This is the site i am working on right now, freehdwallpapers.be I have linked back from a few sites already, i look at the alexa rank if it will show a number at one point, the sites worth is still pretty low, and also i have added social networks on the site which has gained a number of followers to this day, so i got work to do still. I just don't want to go on about it the wrong way and get penalized by google.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 1080HDWallpapers0 -
Changing url to recover from algorythmic penalty
Hello, If I think that a website was hit algorithmically, I would like to buy a new domain name and publish all the content from the first website there. I will take the first site down and this one would be the only one this content. Will Google see that it's the same content than a penalized website posted before and will penalize the new domain name even though it has 0 links pointing to it? Regards.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | EndeR-0 -
Does Anybody Know Who Interflora's SEO Company Is (Or Was)?
In light of the recent penalty put on the Interflora site, does anybody know who their SEO company is or was (or if they were doing it in house)? Also, do you think SEO companies that are responsible for things like this should be named and shamed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jasarrow0 -
Google Sitemaps & punishment for bad URLS?
Hoping y'all have some input here. This is along story, but I'll boil it down: Site X bought the url of Site Y. 301 redirects were added to direct traffic (and help transfer linkjuice) from urls in Site X to relevant urls in Site Y, but 2 days before a "change of address" notice was submitted in Google Webmaster Tools, an auto-generating sitemap somehow applied urls from Site Y to the sitemap of Site X, so essentially the sitemap contained urls that were not the url of Site X. Is there any documentation out there that Google would punish Site X for having essentially unrelated urls in its sitemap by downgrading organic search rankings because it may view that mistake as black hat (or otherwise evil) tactics? I suspect this because the site continues to rank well organically in Yahoo & Bing, yet is nonexistent on Google suddenly. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RUNNERagency0 -
Sitewide logo footer link - what's the risk?
Hi, an incredibly popular website, with several thousand pages, has offered me a site-wide footer logo link. The site this popular website would backlink to has 50 high quality backlinks (and low volumes of traffic - it's a new site). I am tempted to say no, because of the risk of penalty, but then I started wondering whether a logo link posed the same penalty risk as a text link.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Does Google Penalize for Managing multiple Google Places from the same IP Address? Can you manage from same google account or separate? Or does it matter since it's created from the same IP?
I manage a number of client's Google Places from the same IP and heard this is not a good thing. Are there Do's and Don'ts when managing multiple Google Places? Create separate google accounts for each or can you use the same account?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Souk0 -
My page rank dropped by 20 places 1 day before it was cached....any connection?
Hi I've been rather silly and been linking out to other websites for reciprical links. I added about 20 and just discovered some were bad neigbourhoods. On Sunday my rankings tanked but the page was only cached the following day on the Monday. Just wondering if there is any connection. I genuinely did not know that linking out could was bad and have removed all reciprical links as a precaution.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BelfastSEO0