Approximately 67,566 new websites or domains enter the online arena every day. Sure, some of them are here for a brief stay. Others might be your next fierce competitor however and are here to stay. Online competition gets more intense by the day. In such a highly competitive market, every element counts. The URL and its structure is often overlooked as an SEO element, nonetheless it holds many benefits.
URL and Information Architecture
Many designers don’t realise that the URL is an integral part of a site’s design. It’s right there at the top! Even more importantly, browsing often starts with glancing at the URL, either on search engine result pages or typing it into the address bar. Because it’s right there at the top, users see the URL evolve as they browse through a website. As a consequence, the URL should validate the user’s expectations and reassure him or her of the relevancy of the page. A good URL should contain a lot of information for the user as well.
e.g. http://www.bookcapetown.com/accommodation/hotels
This URL tells you that you are browsing a list of hotels within the category accommodation (which means there are other types) in Cape Town. The URL emphasises that you can book the hotel too.
URL as SEO element
While the impact of a URL on search engine rankings is still highly debated, most SEO experts believe that it’s an important element for search engines to determine the relevancy of your page for certain keywords. Even though it won’t make or break your SEO campaign, in a market of fierce competition, every element counts. Simply perform a search on any keyword phrase and you will see that the keyword-rich URLs dominate the top listings. Notice how the keywords in the URL are bolded.
URL issues
The issue is that URLs are often considered only late in the process of a website development. IT or web developers are focused on making a database work. A successful website returns the right information on a visitor’s query. Developers aren’t worried about search engines or findability, but you should be. We see a lot of database driven websites that require a query or search action to find information. This technique poses a direct threat to search engines reaching your content, while they need links and static content to crawl and index a site.
More and more dynamic URLs are rewritten nowadays, as awareness on the topic grows. Nonetheless you still see URLs containing strange character such as % = ? & out there.
e.g. NY Times Article
Bad URL
Good URL
http://www.nytimes.com/technology/finance/how-to-create-a-daily-budget
In the NY Times example above, the dynamic URL contains hardly any information for the user or search engine spider. The new rewritten URL on the other hand includes the category and sub-category. It offers a hint to the user and provides a keyword-rich URL to search engines. Don’t worry if you’re using a Content Management System (CMS) that creates unfriendly URLs. Almost any popular CMS out there has a SEO plug-in that will assist you. Large database driven websites can use algorithms to automatically create SEO-friendly URLs using article categories and sub-categories.
Think before you act. 301.
When should the URL structure be determined? The sooner the better! Preferably right after you have established your keywords and information architecture. If you have a site that is already live, don’t just rewrite your URLs. Remember, Google has already indexed your current URLs. You’ll have to 301 (permanently) redirect all your old URLs to your new ones to avoid canonicalization (duplicate content) and spilling your valuable link juice. 301 redirecting will pass your link juice on to your new pages. Be advised however that you might experience a temporary drop in rankings as Google needs to re-index your site.
A directory style URL structure benefits your search engine optimisation efforts, enhances the user experience and logically shares your information architecture with both humans and search engines. So why not start today?
