Questions tagged [url]
A URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is an address for a file or resource that specifies where that resource is, and how to go about retrieving it.
177
questions
130
votes
8
answers
39k
views
How should I structure my URLs for both SEO and localization?
When I set up a site in multiple languages, how should I set up my URLs for search engines and usability?
Let's say my site is www.example.com, and I'm translating into French and Spanish. What is ...
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27
votes
4
answers
7k
views
Well structured URLs vs. URLs optimized for SEO
Let’s take an example of a movie site. So a well structured set of URLs for this site can be:
Movie page - example.com/movies/the-matrix
Review for movie - example.com/movies/the-matrix/reviews
...
- 373
26
votes
4
answers
20k
views
Are keywords in URLs good SEO or needlessly redundant?
A coworker and I are locked in a debate over the value of SEO keywords in the URL of a page. She wants to change all the filenames of the HTML pages of a fencing company so they look like residential-...
- 472
15
votes
3
answers
3k
views
What is the best file extension for an SEO friendly URL?
I'm working for a website to convert the website URL to an SEO friendly URL. I plan to use this:
example.com/category-name/pageid-123-page-name
I looked at some similarly categorized, highly ranked ...
- 265
17
votes
1
answer
7k
views
Should I submit https:// and http:// in Google Search Console both with and without the www?
In my site I'm redirecting everything (http://, http://www., https://) to https://www.example.com.
Google webmaster tools says: Make sure you add both "www" and "non-www" versions for your site. Also,...
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54
votes
4
answers
32k
views
Does it make a difference if your URL path ends in a trailing slash or not?
Does it make any difference to SEO ratings what-so-ever if your url has a trailing slash:
http://www.example.com/some/slug/paths/
as opposed to one that does not:
http://www.example.com/some/slug/...
- 1,358
27
votes
7
answers
12k
views
Should I use a file extension or not?
I've always wondered about this and never found a good solution.
But this question reminded me of it.
When I have a URL on my website it can be displayed and accessed any of the following ways:
...
- 834
121
votes
13
answers
14k
views
URLs: Should I use hyphens, underscores or plus symbols?
Which is better for search engines?
example.com/my_cool_page.html
example.com/my-cool-page.html
example.com/my+cool+page.html
delete
26
votes
1
answer
24k
views
Is trailing slash automagically added on click of home page URL in browser?
I am asking this because whenever I hover over a link to a home page (e.g. http://www.example.com), I notice that a trailing slash is always added (as observed on the status bar of the browser) ...
- 1,598
17
votes
1
answer
5k
views
Canonical URL for a home page and trailing slashes
My home page could be potentially linked as:
http://example.com
http://example.com/
http://example.com/?ref=1
http://example.com/index.html
http://example.com/index.html?ref=2
(the same page is ...
- 2,353
29
votes
2
answers
22k
views
Is a URL with a query string better or worse for SEO then one without one?
I want to know, is there a huge difference in terms of SEO between these URLs:
example.com/ontario/toronto/listings
or
example.com/listings.php?p=ontario&c=toronto
Will one URL rank higher ...
- 437
17
votes
2
answers
4k
views
What is the best placement for the ID in a URL for SEO?
I would like to know what's the best location for an ID in a SEO optimized URL:
http://www.example.com/123/slug-title
http://www.example.com/slug-title-123
- 303
8
votes
3
answers
719
views
Why treat these as URLs with different path capitalization and trailing slash as different?
These are all strictly different urls:
http://www.example.com/page
http://www.example.com/pAge
http://www.example.com/page/
http://www.example.com/paGE/
I get that it conforms to the strict ISO ...
- 2,390
83
votes
8
answers
7k
views
Should I include "www" in my website's URLs? What are the pros and cons?
What are the pros and cons of having http://www.example.com/ vs http://example.com/?
For example a problem I'm aware of is that if I use a domain without www I can't set a cookie for the current ...
- 2,555
6
votes
4
answers
285
views
SEO and URL Shorteners
When you have a link from lets say twitter that is t.co/foo that links back to your website how does that effect SEO and how do the major search engines handle Shortened URLs?
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votes
5
answers
67k
views
Which special characters are safe to use in url?
Which special characters are safe to use in url?
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votes
3
answers
11k
views
What does WWW do?
To be clear: I am not asking whether or not I should use www in my url, or what the pros and cons are, that topic is well covered. I also wasn't sure if this was a Stack Overflow, Server Fault, or ...
- 405
14
votes
4
answers
13k
views
What should filenames and URLs of images contain for SEO benefit?
We know that good site architecture usually looks like this:
example-company.com/
example-company.com/about/
example-company.com/contact/
example-company.com/products/
example-company.com/products/...
- 1,432
11
votes
1
answer
971
views
URL path structure for a website with several directories
I am making a website with several directories that will have a high amount of content.
For now I have separated the URLs into categories so that they’re like this:
www.example.com/student/
www....
- 356
8
votes
3
answers
49k
views
How to remove trailing slashes from URL with .htaccess?
The situation
Across the entire domain, we'd like the URLs to hide file extensions and remove trailing slashes, independent of the domain name itself (as in, works on any domain).
Sample of our ...
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4
votes
1
answer
955
views
To change URL to user friendly URL [duplicate]
I'm refactoring my ASP.net application from ASP.net 3.5 to 4.0. Also I'm changing the URLs to user friendly URLs /product.aspx?id=100 to /product-name/100.
All my pages are indexed by search engines ...
- 177
56
votes
3
answers
74k
views
What is the difference between a URI and a URL?
I have read these pages:
http://www.w3.org/TR/uri-clarification/
http://www.damnhandy.com/2007/11/19/uri-vs-url-whats-the-difference/
I know basic about URL, URN, and URI; but little on their ...
- 695
44
votes
4
answers
77k
views
What does a double slash in the URL path mean?
What do double slashes often found in URLs mean?
For example:
http://www.example.com/A/B//C/
Please note: I'm not referring to the beginning right after http:.
- 1,897
21
votes
3
answers
9k
views
Should my URLs be lowercase?
According to Understanding SEO Friendly URL Syntax Practices I should change
http://example.com/Hello-Dolly
To
http://example.com/hello-dolly
The reasons given are:
URLs, in general, are ...
- 312
19
votes
4
answers
85k
views
What is good URI design?
How should a good URI be designed? What are the factors to consider? What are the pros and cons of the variants?
Factors that makes up a good URI
Stability over time
Short
Give the user an idea what ...
15
votes
5
answers
8k
views
Benefit of date in URL segments
I was curious about the date in URL segments, is there any SEO point of benefit? For example the following URLs:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/18/netflix-will-launch-in-the-netherlands-later-this-...
- 397
12
votes
4
answers
2k
views
What is the difference between a homepage link with or without a trailing slash?
What is the difference between these two URLs:
http://example.com/
http://example.com
Should we always add the final / or avoid it? Does it make a difference?
- 285
8
votes
3
answers
651
views
Squeezing all the SEO out of a URL as possible
I am working on an ecommerce site, I told our SEO consultant that I plan to make the URL scheme: /products/<id>/<name>. This is similar to Stackoverflow's URLs which are /questions/<id&...
- 299
5
votes
1
answer
82
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
4
votes
1
answer
332
views
Can a URL that is not linked to from anywhere be discovered?
Let's say I have a URL that is not linked to from anywhere, and let's say the file portion is very long, so that it's unlikely it could be accidentally entered. Something like ...
- 143
4
votes
1
answer
695
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?
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1
vote
1
answer
650
views
Local TLD vs. .com and .com/nl vs .nl
I basically have 2 questions about local TLD vs .com.
First question: There already exists a website "keyword.nl" with a crappy website, no SEO optimisation. Is it possible for a website "keyword.com"...
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64
votes
3
answers
30k
views
How can URLs have a dot . at the end, e.g. www.bla.de.?
I never believed URLs could have a period at the end, as in www.google.de. (which obvious is not working).
However, www.youtu.be. is working perfectly well. How did they manage that?
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11
votes
4
answers
18k
views
Hide a Subdomain from Google/Search Engine SEO Result?
I have a subomain which I do not want to be listed in any search engine result. Let say I have:
http://www.example.com
http://child.example.com
How can I hide all URLs of child.example.com domain ...
- 293
7
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Are shorter URLS better for SEO?
Many people shorten their URLs. But as per my understanding it creates overhead of extra redirection, other can not guess about the target article with their url, and it should be less friendly for "...
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5
votes
1
answer
869
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
4
votes
3
answers
457
views
Is placing one or two keywords in the URLs still good for SEO?
My urls do not seem to have my main keywords in them. Is this bad for SEO? Should I include them?
Of course I do not mean actually writing one keyword after each other, but have an organically / ...
4
votes
2
answers
1k
views
SEO-friendly way to pass multiple values in a URL parameter
What is the correct/recommended way from a SEO point of view to pass multiple parameter values for a single key in a URL.
e.g. my online store sells the watches that I'd like filtering using facets ...
Gdev
1
vote
2
answers
323
views
Can domain masking be used to move content from a subdomain to a subdirectory?
example.com is hosted on IP address c.c.c.c at host1, no access any windows server admin at all
blog.example.com is on IP a.a.a.a at host2, full access to Linux server admin, using WordPress
So ...
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1
vote
2
answers
101
views
Subcategorising for URL structure
Please explain which is the best URL structure and why:
website.com/apartments-to-let/manhattan
or
website.com/apartments-to-let-manhattan
This is a property site. Is it best for the bots to break ...
- 181
77
votes
10
answers
74k
views
Why are URLs case-sensitive?
My question: When URLs were first designed, why was case-sensitivity made a feature? I ask this because it seems to me (i.e., a layperson) that case-insensitivity would be preferred to prevent ...
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31
votes
5
answers
4k
views
Why is it preferable to use paths with slashes instead of query-string variables in a web page URL?
Why is it preferable to use paths with slashes instead of query-string variables in a web page URL?
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28
votes
4
answers
39k
views
What is the purpose of leading slash in HTML URLs?
I have noticed that some blogs posts have links using a value starting with / in the href.
For example:
<a href="/somedir/somepage.html">My Page</a>
Does the leading / mean the path is ...
- 4,595
23
votes
6
answers
9k
views
Why are extensions often hidden on URLs?
Many times I see that URL extensions are hidden (e.g. .html, .php), but not all websites do this.
Why do webmasters hide the extension? Is it for security, for the URL to look cleaner, or for some ...
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19
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Do shorter URLs benefit the pagerank and overall SEO value of pages vs. a longer categorised url showing the site structure
We are coming to the end of a long project in which we are upgrading our client's site from a custom built CMS to the latest version of Umbraco CMS whilst also making their website responsive. As part ...
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votes
1
answer
737
views
Multi Language URLs
I'm building an online store that will be supported in 3 languages: English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.
My question is whether or not it is a good idea to make language specific ...
- 273
9
votes
5
answers
839
views
Combine websites without hurting SEO
I have a friend that I'm helping out with some web design. Basically, the guy owns a few businesses that are all complementary of each other and he wants to combine them all into a single site. There'...
- 241
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votes
1
answer
3k
views
Preserve Facebook comments when the site changes domain name
I'm going to be changing the domain name of one of my sites. I'll use 301 redirects.
One thing that I can't figure out is how to preserve all the comments that users have made on the page through ...
- 98.4k
7
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Does a unique ID and title in URL slug improve SEO?
Stack Exchange posts have URLs like this:
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/9848/squeezing-all-the-seo-out-of-a-url-as-possible
Which is the format: /questions/{id}/{slugified-post-title}...
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6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What is the way to properly implement a Facebook Like button on a page for best SEO purposes?
On our site we want to put a Facebook Like button/widget-thingy. It is possible to create a like button, where the URL associated with the button is the page it sits on, rather than a Facebook page.
...
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