3 tips for making SEO friendly URLs

Both search engines and people prefer websites which simple , consistent and readable URLs. We call it friendly URLs.

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a web address . URLs are displayed in the address bar of your web browser.

For example, this is an ugly URL found on Amazon :

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Guide-Study-Skills-ebook/dp/B0057XZMTO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345942018&sr=1-1&keywords=study+guide

Code (markup):

Search engines and users may have problems with complicated and long URLs. This is a clear URL , simple and descriptive :

http://www.mywebsite.com/category/seo/

Code (markup):

This is a clear and simple URL rarely causes problems . A clear URL can show readers that this page contains what they are looking for.

This will increase the percentage of people who click which means more visits to our site. When there is a high percentage of clicks Google will think that our site is relevant and it will help us to rank better.

Another benefit of having simple URLs is that it is more likely that other sites link to us because it is easier to do it . We are going to share 3 tips for making SEO friendly URLs :

1.Parameters in the URL

A parameter is a variable that is added to a URL. "? StoreID = 10151 this example is a parameter:

www.mywebsite.com/?StoreID=10151

Code (markup):

Whenever possible, instead of using parameters, it is simpler, clearer and more descriptive to use real words.

For example, you could refer to an store by using the following URL:

www.mywebsite.com/storename

Code (markup):

We can put the number of the store after it (only if it is necessary ).

For example:

www.mywebsite.com/storename-10151

Code (markup):

It is very important to eliminate or minimize the number of variables in our URL. As we said before, clear , simple and descriptive URLs are better than complicated ones.

Every page must contain different URLs , we must ensure that every page of our website has only one unique URL. If there is more than one page , we have created a duplicate page for search engines.

Google does not like duplicate pages . It can result in a penalty and I will give you two reasons why you should never use duplicate urls .

-Google Panda update has negatively affected lots of sites that contain duplicate content and duplicate urls.

-Let's say that we have two pages on our site with the same content (or created multiple URLs for the same content).
If google indexes both URLs, then the ranking to that content is going to be lowered by our two similar pages , google will divide the ranking by two .

Google usually does not consider this as a penalty because the content belong to your website , but in reality duplicate pages will be penalized in search engine as we have already explained.

2.Canonical URL

If you have more than one URL for the same page , then the best URL is called a canonical URL . If we have no choice but to create content
that has more than one URL we have to make sure of these:

-Generate a 301 redirection from the duplicate to the canonical URL, or
-rel = "canonical" to be added in the duplicate URL.
This will tell Google that this is a duplicate page and needs to be redirected .

3.Our home page should have a unique URL

The Home Page of your site is usually the most important page . It's probably the most powerful page on your site because home pages of most sites get more inbound links . Many sites have a lot of different URL for the main home page. Some examples:

www.mywebsite.com/index.html
www.mywebsite/home
www.mywebsite/home.html
www.mywebsite/home.php
www.mywebsite/page/Home/0,, 1234.00. html

Code (markup):

Best Regards .

RONALD!

 

Thanks for the post. In addition, I can say prepositions should be removed from URLs to shorten it even further. It should be the gist of the title.

 

Pretty nifty guide. At some point, however, one will be stuck with promoting an affiliate url, complete with ugly layout and variables, and may therefore have to get good at finding non-SEO friendly ways to promote it---videos, social media, whatever.

 

There are top ten tips for making SEO friendly.
1. Keywords Should Be In Titles And Headings
2. Right Use Of Keywords In Title Tags
3. Use Of Keywords In The Content
4. Use Keywords In Navigations
5. Use Site Map And Submit It With Google
6. Protect Website From 404 Errors
7. Easy And Keyword Rich URL
8. Comply With W3C Standards
9. Make Website Content Easily Indexed By Spiders
10. Beware Of Google Penalizing

 

If there is big site then no. may also be added to keep it unique... I would say.

See about.com's url formation..