Hello everyone, I started a thread yesterday regarding the best URL format for Google SE. Some DP members replied with articles related to this. For your reference, the discussion was posted here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=214710 Reading the responses from that thread and also the articles that nice DP members provided, I am now convinced to use dash (-) as a URL word separator for our next website. But currently, we have a website that is using (+) as the URL word separator. And I am planning to change it to dash (-). The question is, any negative impact to our traffic coming from Google (currently 60% of traffic comes from Google)? I think I will give an example to make it clear on what we have here. Here is a sample url from our website: http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/v...42/MDC300+Multi-Function+Digital+Still+Camera It means that the page above is about an MDC300 Multi-Function Digital Still Camera. But actually, you can visit the same page with only this URL: http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/view+classifieds/id/1542 So if we change the format of the URL to: http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/v...42/MDC300-Multi-Function-Digital-Still-Camera it will still access the same page. To proceed with this change is to edit only one character in our code (of course you already know which is it) and it will be applied globally, including our daily-generated Google Sitemap. I only want to get your opinion on the negative effects. Thanks
I was thinking the same thing. But for example, if Google had link A in their database for that page and then we changed it to link B, Google can still access the same page using link A (as shown above, changing the last part of the URL still points to the same page) This is what make me think.
You would - and personally I would not bother. The difference between various formats is not that big anyhow. It's just one more place for a keywords and keyword+keyword2 is going to be understood as keyword + keyword2 anyhow, especially if both are present on that page. I mean, even keywordkeyword2 will work (just not as well) if both are present on the page. And even totally meaningless URL-phrases get found in google.
I agree with the KH7, regarding the keywordkeyword found in serps. Further if you are worried about loosing ranks and traffic from google than why not retain the same file naming convention ? Change in filenames may lead search engines to get "file not found" and visitors clicking on the google serp will be lost, but if you can do 301 perminent redirect you may go ahead. BTW, if you plan to keep + - both than don't go for that they will be of no use but could be counted negatively due to duplicate content etc.
Thanks for your responses. imnajam, I think you hit the point. It will be seen by Google as duplicate content even both points to the same page. But because the 2 URLs will be different, it might be taken by Google as 2 different pages. I better leave it now as it is and only apply it in our future websites Thanks again