All Questions
1,902 questions
5
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Is large scale of 301 redirects for URL change harmful for SEO?
I have changed the URL for a large portion of my website (150,000+ URLs) to follow a SEO-friendly structure like all lower-case and hyphenated URLs (earlier they were capitalized at places and had ...
- 446
5
votes
2
answers
266
views
Tell Google the list of URLs to crawl
Consider the case of Quora, which is really SEO-friendly. The problem is that there are no links to questions from Quora homepage. Essentially nothing (even via an indirect URL). So I could never find ...
- 153
5
votes
1
answer
3k
views
What's the deal with URLs for Yandex.Metrica not prepended with "http"?
The description of Yandex.Metrica explicitly says that URLs like //mc.yandex.ru/metrika/watch.js (no http: in front) that the web site owner has to insert into his pages are not erroneous. So for ...
- 227
5
votes
4
answers
322
views
I want to run a URL shortener for my own usage, what do I need to do?
I am tired of using external URL shorteners, my favorite "tr.im" went out of business. I know there are some that will do reporting for me, but I want to run my own, so I can see the usage myself, for ...
- 8,678
5
votes
1
answer
198
views
Schema links and HTTPS
In the process of moving to 100% HTTPS on a site, I performed a site-wide search for http:// in an effort to find potential problems. One common class of instances included schema links (certainly ...
- 153
5
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Apache 2.4 Loads Image Files Even Without Extension. Why?
I have an HTML page with the following:
<img src=J3 width="100" height="150" alt="Student Name" style="float:left;"/>
In the same directory there is an image file, J3.jpg. The page containing ...
- 219
5
votes
2
answers
498
views
SEO and duplicate content for default document
SEO experts sometimes demand that default document, e.g. www.site.com/index.html redirects with 301 to www.site.com, so:
Is that really necessary?
Does Google really penalize that?
- 345
5
votes
2
answers
193
views
Implications of using subdomain or traditional folders SEO
Let's say I run a site where companies get their own page, and within that I also show staff members. I am torn between three different approachs in terms of URL's and want to choose one which is not ...
- 279
5
votes
2
answers
3k
views
How to handle URLs that differ in case-sensitivity and show same content
For to the following URLs:
http://mydomain.com/page
http://mydomain.com/Page
I'm showing the same content. Can this hurt SEO? I understand that theoretically it can, but does Google really penalize ...
- 2,018
5
votes
3
answers
270
views
Organizing website files
I want to start creating my website but I have a few questions.
http://website.com/directory/webpage - in this kind of website, it does not display a .php or .HTML extension at the end. How to ...
- 155
5
votes
1
answer
273
views
Republishing blog posts on a popular website
I started my blog about programming yesterday and in order to promote and increase traffic I submitted my rss to Codeproject which pulls my posts and publishes them at Codeproject.
While it increases ...
- 215
5
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Should I use nofollow on internal links that don't need to be crawled?
We have a product navigation engine that allow our customers to filter products based on attributes (size, color, etc.). We are implementing an upgrade that allows them to use "multi-select" ...
- 226
5
votes
1
answer
185
views
When an attribute value ends in a slash, can I omit the quotes? It looks confusing when the trailing slash is next to the closing angle bracket
I have been thinking about this case:
You want to use canonical on page A directing to example.com/:
<link rel=canonical href=example.com/>
If I wouldn't use quotation marks like that, could ...
user98424
5
votes
1
answer
8k
views
What are the colon and double forward-slash ( :// ) in URIs called?
What are the colon and double forward-slash ( :// ) in URIs called?
user58733
5
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Difference between canonical and base tag
I am a little bit confused regarding the usage of canonical tags and base tags.
I have placed canonical tag (rel="canonical") on my website because of my website opening with no-www. I have reviewed ...
- 61
5
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Should a URL match the page's title?
Should the URL of a page match its title? For example:
Http://example.com/about-cats.html
<title>About Cats</title>
Furthermore, if that title were to be changed by the page's author, ...
- 153
5
votes
3
answers
317
views
For SEO should there be a web page for every URL path segment? [duplicate]
If I have a domain with the URL example.com/section-1/abc, should there also be a dedicated web page for example.com/section-1 from a SEO point of view?
Assume that there is no bread crumb ...
- 528
5
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Which URL is SEO friendly when it comes to non ASCII characters?
/λαδοκολλα-περι-ανεμων
/ladokolla-peri-anemon
In the first URL I'm using the same business name, while in the second one I have converted the business name to Latin characters.
We know that the non ...
- 51
5
votes
2
answers
755
views
When translating a site go with URLs in Chinese or English?
What is the best practice when translating a site to Chinese, go with URLs in Chinese or English?
Could you please share the reason why?
- 53
5
votes
3
answers
822
views
Does shortened URL carry less weight in terms of SEO?
Which backlink would carry more weight in terms of SEO between the original URL to a webpage (like http://www.example.com/Zqe9) or a URL shortened from Google (like goo.gl/Zqe9)?
- 295
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Sitemap XML version vs simple text (urls list) version, do you know what are the pros?
I usualy submit simple text urls list as sitemap on Google webmaster tools. It's just a matter of simplicity, a simple text file is lightweight, easier to read also for humans (actually for me). :)
...
- 6,500
5
votes
3
answers
194
views
When choosing a domain does including your brand affect SEO performance?
I've been asked to build a "landing page" for a local branch of an international corporation. While the corporation has a well-established domain name, the local office wants to use a unique, ...
- 1,282
5
votes
6
answers
838
views
Do keyword-based filenames and URLs really matter?
We've developed a dynamic web application which uses URLs such as product.cfm?id=42 but our marketing team says we should use search friendly URLs and put our keywords into the URLs (so it would be ...
- 1,764
5
votes
2
answers
166
views
Should I keep content="index, follow" on pages where I have canonical to another site
I have a URL on website A that contains content from website B. On-site A at the moment we include canonical that shows site B and at the moment we do not include this URL into site A sitemaps.
...
- 51
5
votes
1
answer
84
views
How can I substitute our site name in the place that the URL usually appears in the Google search results?
Below is a screen shot of a query on Google. The URL usually appears where the green text is. How do you control what that says?
For my specific site it displays the URL. I want to put my business ...
- 217
5
votes
1
answer
431
views
Is it necessary to add a canonical tag for a static site switching from HTTP to HTTPS if there is already a 301 Redirect?
We have a static site that has thousands of HTML pages and are planning to switch to HTTPS in the next few days. As the site is fairly new, we do not have any problems with duplicate content at the ...
- 205
5
votes
1
answer
131
views
Wrong URL Requested But I know what they meant - 404 vs canonical vs 301 redirect
I'm using mod_rewrite to process variables in the URL. For many of my URLs the final portion of the string doesn't matter because I'm not using it. For instance:
/review/company-25/jb-hunt
I'm only ...
- 53
5
votes
1
answer
6k
views
rewrite url - remove trailing / if any and add .php
I have a simple question, yet I've found no posts that answer my question. I need an htaccess file that rewrites the urls so that it removes the ending / if any, and adds .php no matter what the ...
- 103
5
votes
1
answer
978
views
Should we localize URLs for default language or not?
I have a website running in English and Japanese and the default language is Japanese.
What are the advantages of one over the other solution:
Solution 1. When accessing example.com, you will see ...
- 245
5
votes
2
answers
159
views
SEO: Domain name vs other website's page
(Be advised: SEO newbie here)
Say I just bought a new domain name: paper-airplanes.com.
I'm entering a new market where only few companies have websites, however, there is one other site I'm worried ...
- 53
5
votes
1
answer
3k
views
What are the differences between a regular HTTP web server and a REST server?
I am learning about REST services and from what I understood until now the only difference is the language of the file that is outputted by the script that runs as a backend.
Can a regular web server ...
- 373
5
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Google thinks my domain doesn't exist or is misspelled when users search for it
I created a website for ecommerce, but am having problems with the Google search. My site link is "banilla.com.br" or "www.banilla.com.br", but Google thinks they are both misspellings (on either ...
- 51
5
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Should I avoid using brackets in my URL?
I'm using a (very good) developer in Ukraine and he insists on using brackets in the URL of my search query. (I can't remember why)
http://example.com/search/?Search[term]=go&Search[Store][...
- 489
5
votes
2
answers
137
views
Would having a './' in a URL cause any trouble with search engines?
For code simplicity, some of my URLs in my website might contain a ./
For example:
www.example.com/./something
The ./ is automatically stripped-out by the browser, and the resulting URL is:
...
- 53
5
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How to set preferred URL in Bing Webmaster Tools
My site is www.example.com and Bing Webmaster Tools keeping telling me to submit a sitemap for example.com, so it is possible to stop Bing stop bothering me the example.com?
- 143
5
votes
3
answers
5k
views
Multiple URL's going to same page - Kosher for Google?
I hear conflicting answers from people about this, and I'm a developer by trade, and my SEO knowledge is not what it should be. Here's my situation:
I run a website that lists hotels, restaurants, ...
- 51
5
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Does the google crawler really guess URL patterns and index pages that were never linked against?
I'm experiencing problems with indexed pages which were (probably) never linked to. Here's the setup:
Data-Server: Application with RESTful interface which provides the data
Website A: Provides the ...
- 53
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Correct syntax for Canonical - link or meta tag?
I'm getting a little confused about adding canonical tags to pages. Some (most?) guides suggest using a link tag thusly:
<link rel="canonical" href="www.example.com/somepage" />
but some ...
- 153
5
votes
1
answer
918
views
Google is including a wrong & misleading URL in search results for my WordPress site
WordPress apparently will resolve partial URLs to the "correct" page when entered at the parent level. Google is including this partial URL in its search results. For example, years ago I wrote a blog ...
- 81
5
votes
1
answer
118
views
Implementing 301 redirects won't work without an existing file. Will that matter to Google or is there a better way to implement redirects?
I just published a completely revised version of a website (static site to a Wordpress powered one) without changing the domain or the web server. In the old site the URL structure was
example.com/...
- 51
5
votes
1
answer
88
views
SEO consequences for category pages 404-ing
Question, is it ok for one of the pages levels to 404? (SEO-wise)
Let's say I have a sitemap like this:
example.com
--/services
--/foo
--/bar
--/sectors
--/my-sector
--/another-sector
--/...
- 53
5
votes
1
answer
151
views
How to split a ranked page or category?
This is a general question and not related to the specified URL.
I have some websites that contain many categories. Now I want to split some categories.
For example:
I have office table and chair ...
5
votes
2
answers
9k
views
Filter to show complete URL (including subdomain) in Google Analytics reports
I have a subdomain on my website and am unable to get some data individually for the main domain and subdomain. For example, both the homepages are counted as one with the "/".
I have seen some ...
- 93
5
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Should slug (SEO/user friendly URLs) contain only English letters?
Can I create slug with unicode letters since all the major browsers support unicode urls (so it won't be transformed into the utf8 equivalent), or should I always use English letters?
For example: If ...
- 151
5
votes
1
answer
328
views
Should I use a canonical tag when only 50% of the content is duplicated?
I have a city guide website covering bars, restaurants and clubs. Each of these venues have their own subpage on my website like: example.com/steersons-steak-house-darling-harbour-sydney/
For all ...
- 213
5
votes
1
answer
123
views
SEO for a website with a commercial and a residential versions that use the same images and mostly the same text
A website I'm currently working on requires there to be both a residential and commercial version of the website.
The two versions will be quite similar across the board, but the copy will have some ...
- 151
5
votes
2
answers
182
views
Shopping Cart URL Structure
In regards to URL structure when it comes to guests and authenticated users, am I able to track traffic associated with both paths, but at the same time track total conversions going through the ...
- 101
5
votes
2
answers
83
views
which URL should I chose for mobile?
I was looking everywhere (as well as on Google's blog) and could not find a straight answer to this question: which URL is the best for mobile from an SEO perspective? Is there a difference between:
...
- 151
5
votes
1
answer
133
views
Canonical Tag Not Being Recognized
I'm puzzled by the first Google search result in this list.
The first result has the following rel="canonical" tag:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://seatgeek.com/colorado-buffaloes-basketball-...
- 153
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How should incorrectly encoded URLs be handled?
Just recently noticed that some sites link with the URL incorrectly percent-encoded, to which my server (LAMP) responds with a 404 Not Found.
For example, for a URL of mine like this:
http://www....
- 6,007