URL Optimization

A URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, is the web address that you type into your browser. It tells your browser exactly where a page is located on the internet. A URL is a human-readable text that has been configured to replace the numbers (IP addresses) that allow computers to communicate with servers. They also describe the structure of the file on the website.

A URL is made up of a few different parts:

• Protocol: This is the part that tells your browser how to get information about a resource, like http:// or https://.
• Domain name: This is the human-readable name of a specific location on the internet, like www.example.com.
• Path: This is the part of the URL that describes the file structure on the website.

What is URL optimization?

URL optimization is the process of refining the URL structure of a website to make the web page more easily accessible to users and search engine crawlers. It is a key step in the on-page search engine optimization process that lets search engine crawlers understand the web page’s content.

Why do URLs matter for SEO?

URLs are more than just a web address. They are a valuable tool for SEO. Here are three major advantages of optimizing your URLs:

Enhanced user experience

A well-crafted URL gives both search engines and humans a clear hint of what a page is about. For example, a URL like yourwebsiteurl.com/clear-blue-iphone-12-case is much easier to understand than yourwebsiteurl.com/index.php?=product=129. This enhances the user experience by making it clear what they will see if they click the link.

Rankings

URLs are a small ranking factor that search engines use to assess a page’s importance. While using keywords in your URL is not a major ranking factor, it can still help a search engine understand your content better.

Links

A well-written URL can act as its own page title when it is shared on social media or in blogs and forums. A readable URL can also encourage more clicks.

SEO best practices for URLs

URLs have to be 100% readable

If you can’t read every word in your URL, a search engine can’t either. This is a big problem because search engines know that many people read URLs before clicking on them. You should always use a human-readable URL that gives a clear idea of what the page is about.

Use a hyphen, not an underscore

If you want to separate words in your URL, you should always use hyphens instead of underscores. Search engines were built to read hyphens, not underscores. This is a simple but important rule to follow.

Top content in the top folders

Search engines consider pages in your root folder to be top-level content and potentially more important. So, you should be very careful about how you organize your URLs. The structure of the URL can indicate the importance of a page on your site.

No capital letters

You should avoid using capital letters in a URL. Capital letters can confuse search engines and make your URL more difficult to remember.

The home page is expected to have one URL

Your home page is typically the most important page on your site, but many websites have several different home page URLs. You should choose one canonical URL for your home page and use 301 redirects from all the other versions to the correct one.

Block bad URLs with robots.txt

You can use a robots.txt file to block search engines from indexing URLs that create duplicate content. For example, you can block unnecessary dynamic URLs that point to the same content.

Stop words

Stop words are small filler words like “the,” “a,” or “an.” For a long time, many SEOs believed that you should not use them. Today, it is not that big of a deal. You should only use them if they make your URL more readable and understandable.

Keep it trustworthy

A trustworthy website will always rank better. Some essential security and trustworthiness factors that you should bear in mind when setting up your URLs are listed below. Every one will help you build a site reputation, which will help you boost your rankings.

HTTP vs. HTTPS

This one is simple. The “s” in HTTPS stands for secure. All communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is the norm for all websites.

Use Canonical URLs

Dynamic pages can often unintentionally generate duplicate content, and you don’t want to be penalized for that. A canonical URL is a way of telling search engines which page is the original.

Redirect preferred domain

Search engines can see www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com as two separate websites. To fix this, you should set your chosen domain redirect to either www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com.

Dynamic content

If you have a URL like https://yourwebsiteurl.com/blue-iphone-12-case that has the same content as other URLs, you can add a rel=”canonical” link attribute to the header of those pages with the same content. This will tell search engines to index https://yourwebsiteurl.com/blue-iphone-12-case.

Canonicalize your IP

This is another way of preventing a penalty for duplicate content. You should redirect your IP address to your desired domain. Otherwise, a search engine might assume that your IP address and your website are two separate websites with the exact content.

Demonstrate how to handle complex parameters

You can tell search engines if you want them to ignore any parameters attached to your URLs, such as pagination or a session ID. By doing this, you tell a search engine that https://yourwebsiteurl.com/board?sessionid=58 has the same content as https://yourwebsiteurl.com/board.

301 redirect broken URL

If you need to change a URL for any reason, you should use a 301 redirect from your old URL to your new one. This will tell search engines that the page has moved permanently, and it will ensure that you don’t lose any of the SEO value of the old page.

Incorporate the exact target keyword

If necessary, you should add your exact target keyword or phrase in your URL. You should not, however, repeat keywords in a URL. This can be seen as a form of manipulation, and it can make your content appear spammy. Our free AI Rewording Tool can help you ensure that your content is always fresh and not spammy.

Future proof of your URLs

You should try to keep your URLs evergreen. For example, instead of a URL like https://yourwebsiteurl.com/black-friday-2020, you should use a URL like https://yourwebsiteurl.com/black-friday. This way, you can update the content year after year and all the links to the previous year’s content remain in place.

Conclusion

URL optimization can seem a bit tricky, but it comes down to a few simple concepts: short, simple, and readable. You can start by ensuring that your URLs are human-readable, that you are using hyphens instead of underscores, and that you are not using capital letters. You can also use redirects and canonicals to ensure that you are not penalized for duplicate content. A platform like Clickrank.ai can help you with your on-page SEO, your technical issues, and your content, so you can build a strong website that ranks well.