Quick Concepts
URLs are great… but people that use the default URL wordpress spits out, or try to stuff their URLs lose human value, and thus some SEO value too. Google likes short URLs – Matt Cutts of Google once said “Now, our algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.
“The thing to be aware of is, ask yourself: ‘How does this look to a regular user?’
3 Keys to Solid URL’s
Keep them readable (match to title most of the time, leave out dynamic stuff when possible like ? And #)
Use your keyword (often url becomes anchor text)
Keep it short (50-60 characters, no stop words)
Full Transcription
Hey, how’s it going, this is Tim Brown, and this is another episode of “Google Likes It.” Today we’re going to talk about how Google likes it when you keep your URLs short. By default, a lot of website systems like Wordpress and other ones will actually make your URL (the link) as long as the title. You don’t want it to be that long, so we can actually condense it down.
The thing to be aware of is:
- How does this look to a regular user?
- How would it be used on social media?
- How would people interact with this?
- Ideally, it’s short enough that you could remember it at a glance
Three things to keep in mind:
1) Keep them readable – Match the title most of the time and leave out dynamic stuff like a question mark or a hash sign
2) Use your primary keyword – Often the URL becomes anchor text if someone is linking back to your site
3) Keep it short – 50-60 characters are fine, don’t use ‘and’ and ‘or,’ don’t use transitional words, 3-4 words at most
Thank you for joining me for another episode of “Google Likes It.” Join me again next week.
