How to write search engine freindly URLs - Website Promotion

If you have spent any time trying to figure out how to improve your websites performance with organic search you have probably heard a lot about search engine optimization. Along the way you have been subjected to a mixture of truth and error, plus a healthy dose of secret formulas!

One of the secret formula ingredients you may no have heard about is improving the structure of your URLs. Search engine friendly URLs are not a must have. However, they are highly recommended. the Google Search Engine Optimizations Starter Guide (available has the downloadable PDF file) recommends you spend some time on your URLs to allow for better crawling, with the additional bonus that they look friendlier to searchers and make your listing more clickworthy.

You may be asking how in the world can I change my URL?

Lets first consider what a URL is. Your URL consists of:

For example /folder1/1357924.html

Sometimes visitors to you site will link to your pages. More than likely they will use the URL as the anchor text. Search engine spiders use the anchor text as a vote (made by the poster of the link) as to what the page is really about. So, if the URL doesnt contain any relevant words and it is used as the anchor text the search engine spiders will not be given any indication of what the link is for.

Post By: Ralph Date: July 9, 2009 Take a look at this great deal I found on these golf clubs. The link is: /folder1/1357924.html

Heres a better example:

Post By: Ralph Date: July 9, 2009 Take a look at this great deal I found on these golf clubs. The link is: /discount-golf-clubs/taylor-made.html

Now the poster of the link has just told the search spider that he thinks your page is about discount Taylor Made golf clubs. And he didnt have to re-write his link with anchor text containing keywords ( I mean, come on WHO DOES THAT nobody!). It happens because you made it so easy for him to do so.

You cannot use spaces in a URL to separate words. So use a dash -. Search spiders will parse this as if it were a space and count the words on either side as separate keywords.

Many web masters and designers either run the words together: /discountgolfclubs/taylormade.html

But this tells the search spider your page is about discountgolfclubs or taylormade neither of these combination of letters constitutes a real word with an attached meaning. And thats exactly how the search engines treat them total gibberish. Which is no better than folder1/1357924. I tell nothing about your site.

Many IT types serve double duty as web masters and they like to use the underscore _ like so: /discount_golf_clubs/taylor_made.html. Search engine spiders do not interpret the underscore as a space. So once again you are feeding them only a string of gibberish that says nothing about the content of your page.

If your webmaster, web designer or IT guru refuses to comply you are just going to have to put your foot down and remind them who signs the paychecks each week!

Lets Recap:

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