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.
1,303
questions
125
votes
8answers
35k 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 ...
120
votes
13answers
12k 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
82
votes
8answers
6k 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 ...
66
votes
10answers
59k 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 ...
62
votes
3answers
26k 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?
55
votes
3answers
71k 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 ...
52
votes
4answers
30k 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/...
39
votes
4answers
61k 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:.
31
votes
5answers
3k 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?
27
votes
7answers
11k 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:
...
27
votes
2answers
19k 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 ...
26
votes
4answers
19k 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-...
25
votes
1answer
21k 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) ...
24
votes
4answers
6k 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
...
24
votes
4answers
31k 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 ...
24
votes
3answers
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 ...
23
votes
6answers
8k 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 ...
21
votes
5answers
57k views
21
votes
5answers
627 views
Are there any technical issues with having an 'internationalized' domain name?
In my language there are numerous characters that are not allowed in the standard domain name. However, most of these can be easily replaced with safe equivalents (mostly dropping accents í becomes i ...
21
votes
2answers
1k views
What are the friendly/rich URLs in Google Search result snippets called?
When searching content on Google, I sometimes see a neatly organized location of the document, instead of the regular URLs we see everyday.
After a solid hour of searching about this feature, I ...
20
votes
3answers
8k 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 ...
19
votes
4answers
61k 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 ...
19
votes
5answers
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 ...
18
votes
4answers
33k views
How do I find when an URL was first indexed by Google?
How do I find out when a particular URL was first indexed by Google? I'd prefer a solution that works even for competitors' URLs that are not owned by me.
18
votes
2answers
7k views
Why is there are tilde (~) sign in most university URLs
My university provides a web URL and some hosting space and the URL is like http://homepages.iitb.ac.in/~pritampebam.
Almost all universities I've come across seem to use this structure where there ...
17
votes
2answers
20k views
Can I use asterisks in URLs?
Are there any reasons I shouldn't use an asterisk (*) in a URL?
Background:
With asterisks, I could provide these nice and user friendly (or what do you think??) URLs:
example.com/some/folder/...
17
votes
2answers
3k 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
16
votes
1answer
6k 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,...
16
votes
3answers
4k views
How should websites handle hostname with trailing dot?
I read this question How can URLs have a dot . at the end, e.g. www.bla.de.? and realise that FQDN should contain a trailing . for the root label of the DNS tree:
example.com. instead of example.com
...
15
votes
5answers
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-...
15
votes
3answers
3k views
Why do Stack Overflow question URLs have the question ID before SEO friendly 'question'?
Take for example this random question: Tool or plugin required to show out in which html files a given css selectors is used, notice that the relevant part is /questions/16999.
Now, it being possible ...
15
votes
3answers
2k 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 ...
15
votes
1answer
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 ...
14
votes
4answers
12k 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/...
14
votes
1answer
2k views
How to handle canonical url changes like Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow sites all have pretty urls which include the question title. In the HTML it also have canonical url for that page.
I just found out that when I change the question title, the url is ...
13
votes
5answers
11k views
Can I define the letter case of a Domain Name?
I want to purchase a second level domain (on the web platform Altervista.org) with the .com extension. Since within the domain verification process I can type characters in both upper and lower case ...
12
votes
4answers
1k 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?
12
votes
3answers
5k views
Will having product ID in URLs hurt SEO compared to a URL with only keywords?
Say I have a web shop with a product (optimus-prime), in a category (superheros) such that it has the URL:
www.example.com/superheroes/optimus-prime
Now I want to prepend the product ID (99) to the ...
12
votes
1answer
4k views
Should I translate URL for better SEO?
I have a website about TV shows, that for default (EN) pages, it's like this:
example.com/en/show/actors
example.com/en/show/episodes
The site is localized in different languages, and I was ...
11
votes
3answers
2k views
Should stop words such as "and" and "in" be omitted from URLs for SEO?
I have read before, it's recommended to don't use And, In and The in the URL, because this is will effect on the site rank.
Is it correct? if yes please guide me with the list of words that should ...
11
votes
4answers
16k 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 ...
11
votes
1answer
10k views
Is it bad to use parentheses in a URL
Is it bad to use parentheses within a site's URLs? For example in my site, I have broken a three part article as such:
www.example.com/article-on-some-subject-(part-1-abc)
www.example.com/article-on-...
11
votes
5answers
382 views
Which of these 3 URL-Rewritings are better SEO friendly URLs?
Imagine my current flat-file no-CMS website with an URL like http://example.com/en/tomato.
This is of course very unsexy and could be anything really from tomato soup, tomato the music band, tomato ...
11
votes
2answers
11k views
Is a trailing slash appropriate before URL parameters?
I understand that
http://www.example.com/product
and
http://www.example.com/product/
can actually be seen as 2 different URLs and is probably best avoided for SEO purposes, but how does this ...
11
votes
3answers
10k views
Should URL paths be case sensitive?
My website's URLs are currently case-insensitive. For example, both of the following links show the exact same page:
http://example.com/about
http://example.com/About
However, taking a look at the ...
11
votes
1answer
896 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....
11
votes
2answers
1k views
URL paths and their effect on SEO
We are developing a website where there will be two distinct types of content: galleries and photos.
It makes little sense to use URL paths like /gallery/photo as some photos can appear in more than ...
11
votes
1answer
730 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 ...
10
votes
4answers
10k views
In terms of SEO, what is the difference between a URL with and without a trailing slash?
In terms of SEO, what's the difference between:
http://example.com/some-stuff/
and
http://example.com/some-stuff
I could not find anything useful regarding this concept, can you explain this?
10
votes
3answers
12k views
Adding links: can I use //domain (double slash) for both https:// and http://
We are moving to https soon. I understand that it is smart to use //domain.com links and images src references.
Does the browser then first try https? and if not found http?
Is this supported by ...
