SEO Best Practices Part 4

URL Structuring

Creating descriptive categories and filenames for the documents on your website can not only help you keep your site better organized, but it could also lead to better crawling of your documents by search engines. Also, it can create easier, “friendlier” URLs for those that want to link to your content.
URLs like these can be confusing and unfriendly. Users would have a hard time reciting the URL from memory or creating a link to it. Also, users may believe that a portion of the URL is unnecessary, especially if the URL shows many unrecognizable parameters. They might leave off a part, breaking the link.

Use words in URLs

URLs with words that are relevant to your site’s content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Visitors remember them better and might be more willing to link to them.

• Do use words in your URL structure or pathing:
  • Right: http://www.leroysstampcollecting.com/vintage/rare/mickeymouse.htm
  • Wrong: http://www. leroysstampcollecting.com/folder1/1089257/x1/0000023a.htm
• Avoid:
  • Using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs
  • Choosing generic page names like “page1.html”
  • Using excessive keywords like “stamp-collecting-stamps-collect-stampcollecting.htm”

Dynamic pages

If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

Simple Directory structure

Use a directory structure that organizes your content well and is easy for visitors to know where they are at on your site. Try using your directory structure to indicate the type of content found at that URL.

• Example: “…/vintage/rare/mickeymouse.html”
• Avoid:
  • Having deep nesting of subdirectories like “…/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/page.html”
  • Using directory names that have no relation to the content in them

One version of a URL to reach a document

To prevent users from linking to one version of a URL and others linking to a different version (this could split the reputation of that content between the URLs), focus on using and referring to one URL in the structure and internal linking of your pages. If you do find that people are accessing the same content through multiple URLs, setting up a 301 redirect from non-preferred URLs to the dominant URL is a good solution for this.

• Avoid:
  • Having pages from sub domains and the root directory (e.g. “domain.com/ page.htm” and “sub.domain.com/page.htm”) access the same content
  • Using odd capitalization of URLs (many users expect lower-case URLs and remember them better)
• Never: Mix www. and non-www. versions of URLs in your internal linking structure