Optimizing URL’s

1. Search Engine Friendly URLs
2. Absolute Vs Relative URLS
3. Don’t Nest Your Pages Too Deeply
4. Fixing Broken Links
5. Unfriendly Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs
6. NOFOLLOW

1. Clean Search Engine Friendly URLs
Clean URLS (or search engine friendly urls) are just that – easy to read, simple. You do not need clean urls in site architecture for Google to spider a site successfully.

The thinking is that you might get a boost in Google SERPS if your URLS are clean – because you are using keywords in the actual page name instead of a parameter or ID number. Google might reward the page some sort of relevance because of the actual file / page name.

Configure Urls the following way:

1. www.magwebonline.com/seo-blog/?p=292 — is automatically changed by the CMS using url rewrite to
2. www. magwebonline.com /seo-blog/index.php/ websites-clean-search-engine-friendly-urls/ — which I then break down to something like
3. www.magwebonline.com/seo-blog /search-engine-friendly-urls/

2. Absolute Vs Relative URLS

This is another one of those areas in SEO or website development that you shouldn’t be concerned about. My advice would be to keep it consistent.

Which Is Better? – Absolute or Relative URLS?

I prefer absolute urls. That’s just a preference. Google doesn’t care so neither do I, really. I have just gotten into the habit of using absolute urls.

• What is an absolute URL? Example – http://www.magwebonline.com/search-engine-optimisation.htm
• What is a relative URL? Example – /search-engine-optimisation.htm

Relative just means relative to the document the link is on. Move that page to another site and it won’t work. With an absolute URL, it would work.

3. Don’t Nest Your Pages Too Deeply

When Google crawls your site, it typically starts at the home page and then follow search link on the page to all your other pages. Google finds your home page in turn from following a link on another website that points to your site.

Google seems to attach more importance to files that are closer to the root folder on your server – the folder on your Web server where the home page file is located. Some web designers however may create multiple folders and subfolders on the server for ease in maintaining lots of files.

Google may not value pages located in subfolders as strongly as files located in the root folder. In general, Google doesn’t like to index pages that are more than about three folder levels deep. Ideally, all pages should live in the same folder as your home page or at most be one level deep. 

4. Fix Broken Links

The best advice I ever read about creating a website / optimizing a website was years ago – Make sure all your pages link to at least one other in your site.

This advice is still sound today and the most important

Seriously, broken links are a waste of link power and could hurt your site, drastically in some cases. Google is a link based search engine – if your links are broken and your site is chock full of 404s you might not be at the races.

Here’s the second advice – link to your important pages often internally, with varying anchor text in the navigation and in page text content.

5. Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs

Google and other 4 major Search Engines now recommend that webmasters and site owners DO NOT rewrite their ugly dynamic URLs to be clean and static. What’s the reasoning behind this?

As we know static or static-looking URLs were an advantage for indexing and ranking their sites. This is based on the presumption that search engines have issues with crawling and analyzing URLs that include session IDs or source trackers.

While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of “click through rates” because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking. Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.

However, the fact that some developers incorrectly create rewrite rules does not mean that sticking with dynamic parameters is now the “best practice.” It simply means you have to do it right.

Let’s go over the list of pros and cons for static vs. dynamic URLs and see what’s really changed:

Pros of Dynamic URLs

• Umm… they’re usually longer?
• Google (1 of the 4 major search engines) says they can effectively crawl and index them

Cons of Dynamic URLs

• Lower click-through rate in the search results, in emails, and on forums/blogs where they’re cut and pasted
• A greater chance of cutting off the end of the URL, resulting in a 404 or other error when copying/pasting
• Lower keyword relevance and keyword prominence
• Nearly impossible to write down manually and share on a business card or read over the phone to a person
• Challenging (if not impossible) to manually remember
• Does not typically create an accurate expectation of what the user will see prior to reaching the page
• Not usable in branding or print campaigns
• Won’t typically carry optimized anchor text when used as the link text (which happens frequently due to copying & pasting)

Pros of Static URLs (mostly the opposites of the above)

• Higher click-through rates in the SERPs, emails, web pages, etc.
• Higher keyword prominence and relevancy
• Easier to copy, paste and share on or offline
• Easy to remember and thus, usable in branding and offline media
• Creates an accurate expectation from users of what they’re about to see on the page
• Can be made to contain good anchor text to help the page rank higher when linked-to directly in URL format
• All 4 of the major search engines (and plenty of minor engines) generally handle static URLs more easily than dynamic ones, particularly if there are multiple parameters

Cons of Statics URLs

• You might mess up the rewriting process, in which case your users and search engines will struggle to find content properly on your site.

So – bottom line – dynamic URLs don’t afford you the same opportunity for search engine rankings, usability or portability that rewritten, keyword-optimized URLs do. Just because one of the engines doesn’t have trouble crawling them doesn’t mean it’s any less critical to continue optimizing this element of a site’s structure.

6. What is NOFOLLOW?

Adding rel=”nofollow” to a link effectively stops a link being a link, as far as Google is concerned. This means the link does not count as a vote, does not pass page rank.  Example Contact us page which you don’t want to rank.

<a href="http://www.magwebonline.com/" rel="nofollow">MAGWeb</a>