Prior to this tutorial it is suggested that you read our Introduction to URLs tutorial. This reviews important aspects of URL’s and their structure, and will help you understand the basics of URLs in SEO.

Now that you are familiar with the various aspects of a URL, you should determine the best way to optimize a URL for the search engines.  First, we need to discuss three crucial points:

1. Placing keywords in your URLs can help improve your rankings, however, existing URLs that have been changed need to be redirected to a new one. If URLs are not redirected, links and bookmarks directing to that URL will be broken, causing the page to drop out of the search engines. Be sure to use a 301 redirect to ensure that user traffic, links, and search engines are properly sent to the new URL.

2. If you already have a high-ranking website and/or page, more times then not, it is a bad idea to change your URL. .In other words, it is most always a bad decision to change your URL if you already have an existing high-ranking page.

3. Utilizing a keyword in your URL won’t impact your SEO results if that is your only strategy.  Alongside a robust SEO campaign, however, it is proven that the webpage with the keyword in the URL will receive a higher click-through rate and will outrank other sites that have not optimized their URLs.

Subdomains
Placing your keywords in the subdomain of your URLs can increase your rank in search engines. Though this can vary from time to time, the search engines will often assume that there is a strong relationship between keywords found in the subdomain and the content of the page, therefore providing a probable boost in the search engine ranking for that keyword.  Because of past abuses of this system, search engines no longer place as high as an emphasis on keywords in subdomains alone. However, in conjunction with a robust SEO campaign, including keywords in your subdomain will assist in driving the most qualified leads to your site.

While optimizing your subdomains please be sure not to go overboard. Search engines love content whose relevance is easily identifiable, but absolutely hate spam, so steer clear of any actions that the engines may red-flag. For example, many sites have a one word or phrase subdomain, and very often do not have multiple phrased sub domains (such as keyword1.keyword2.keyword3.yoursite.com).  These actions, which are not typical, cause the search engines to question and potentially penalize your site.  Additionally, keywords should only be used in subdomains for sites that have a large number of pages with distinctive content. CNN, for example, only assigns subdomains for pages with distinctive content (i.e. sportsilustrated.cnn.com). An overarching lesson to avoid calling your site into question is to keep all keywords relevant, necessary and concise.

Domains
As discussed in our Introduction to URLs tutorial, your domain is your registered domain name (such as www.riseinteractive.com).  Unlike subdomains, you don’t have the flexibility to alter your domain name. This is the reason why placing keywords in subdomains can result in ranking advantages.  Many extremely successful sites whose domain names don’t have anything to do with their products and/or services (i.e. Google, Yahoo, Ebay, etc) attach keywords in their subdomains to increase qualified traffic. If possible, include main keywords in your domain name.  If that is not possible, try to place your keywords in other, useful sections of your URL, such as your subdomain or subdirectories.

Subdirectories and file names.
If you’re unable to place your keyword in the domain name, and it isn’t optimal to put it into the subdomain, the next best alternative is to place it in the subdirectory or file name.  Typically, it does not matter which you use to contain the keyword, just be sure to use either one or the other. Also, be aware of repetitions in the URL, which are typically associated with spam and are thus ranked lower.  For example, http://www.riseinteractive.com/seo.html is okay whereas http://www.seo.com/seo.html would most likely be red flagged. Remember to continually analyze your search results so you are able to quickly determine what is and is not working optimally.

File Extensions
File extensions usually do not influence search rankings so long as the extension is one that is not normally connected with a web page. While, .html or .htm is the most often used file extension, we are seeing more file extensions in the top 10 search results that include .cfm, .php, .asp, and .aspx. So in terms of ranking, all of these file extensions are the same in the engines eyes.

Fine tune your URL structure
The following lists some additional facts worth taking into account when optimizing your URLs for the search engines:

1. Place the most generic keywords earlier in your URL structure.
For example, keywords such as “sports” should be placed in either your domain or subdomain name and more specific keywords, such as a particular team, should be a subdirectory or file name.

2. Use static, not dynamic URLs.
An example of a static and dynamic URL is http://www.shopping.aol.com/clothing/shirt/blue/large vs, http://shopping.aol.com/?ncid=AOLCOMMshopSRCHelnk0006&refCode=aolpartner_aolsearchtab.  When there are more than three variables in dynamic URL, a website rarely gets fully indexed.  Therefore, avoid using more than two if possible.  Ideally, static URLs are best.

3. Try not to use Session IDs.
Specific variable names, like ID, are also aspects that indexing-bots often stay away from.  This is because of what is called a session variable, which is a variable (i.e., number) that is different to each visitor to the site.  For example, a new number is generated inside the URL of that page for that specific visitor, so the URL changes with each person who visits the site. This happens each time someone visits a particular page. Thinking that the URL represents a new page, the search engine spiders can get “trapped” downloading the exact same page over and over again.  Because this wastes the search engines time and resources they have been programmed to do their best to avoid URLs that seem to have a session variable.

When all is said and done, taking these steps to optimize your URL’s is a worthwhile endeavor.  While it isn’t the foundation of a good SEO campaign, SEO friendly URLs definitely help you make your campaign as optimized as possible.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Rise Interactive, SEM Tutorial, SEO Friendly Web Design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.