CommerceStyle.com

Search Engine Friendly URLs PDF Print E-mail
(3 votes)

Search Engine Friendly URL's,  It's not just for SEO anymore.

Search engine friendly URL's are short, easy to read by human website URL's that replace the long and un-readable strings that most shopping cart solutions produce to show dynamic data from a database.

not friendly: www.site.com/catalog/file.dll?secid=009&catid=992
freindly: www.site.com/books/fiction

It was originally believed (and argued by SEO's) that better URL's meant better search engine placement.  The orignal thought was that some search engines have a hard time reading query string URL's because they see the same page for lots of different content when they crawl a site (since one dynamic page displays lots of dynamic content).  It was also believed that search engine spiders have a hard time reading past the "?".  This was all eventually proven wrong, and then the argument went on that having keywords in your URL's helped your search results.  While this hasn't really been proven, most people figure it can't hurt, so why not.

While I don't think we can get everyone to agree that short easy to read URL's may or may not make you shoot to the top of Google and Yahoo, they certainly don't hurt, so if it's within technical reach, it's well worth looking into.

The best argument I've found for SEO URL's is just the clean professional appeal they give to a website.  Plus with Web 2.0 sites taking off, it's almost a must to have super short and clean URL's if you want to be part of the crowd.

The bottom line is this, short URL's not only are less intimidating to customers, they make navigating a site easier (if they work as they are supposed to).
For example...
If www.site.com/books/fiction takes you to the fiction category of the book section of an online store, then we should be able to take off the last part of the url and get to all books by visiting www.site.com/books

It's all about making customers feel comfortable on your website, and short clean URL's can really go a long way into doing that.


Quote this article on your site

Comments (5)
RSS comments
1. 02-01-2012 11:41
Articels like this just make me want to visit your website even more.
Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Guest)
2. 02-01-2012 16:23
38ZSSQ cwtyxepjrnys
Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Guest)
3. 03-01-2012 16:32
mT234J , [url=http://wgkrwwurykmq.com/]wgkrwwurykmq[/url], [link=http://zqctacbjyxna.com/]zqctacbjyxna[/link], http://qfnfnecwgofu.com/
Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Guest)
4. 06-01-2012 02:18
Are you sure that an ALT tag is an alternate version of your website? I think #1 should be c or d, not a 
 
life insurance policies
Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Guest)
5. 31-01-2012 10:54
propranolol olhre wellbutrin topamax weight loss msqgyp
Written by This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (Guest)

Something on your mind?
    Name:
    E-mail
    Homepage
    Comment:

    Code:* Code
    Email me when more comments are posted


    Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
    Reddit! Del.icio.us! Google! Live! Facebook! StumbleUpon! Yahoo!
     
    < Prev   Next >
    Advertisement

    Sections

    You are here  :Home arrow Articles arrow Search Engine Friendly URLs