Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Are the prepositions and separate letters in URL bad for website optimization?
-
Is it ok for website optimization to use prepositions and separate letters in URL ?
Examples: -i-series ; -salad-with-avocado etc.
-
Thanks Ipegiro... My point exactly on saying "unless they are creating value within the url"... as obviously "bunny-on-stool" has a completely different meaning than "bunny-stool"..
Cheers
-Jake
-
Reducing the url lenght will be a best pratice, however my adivice is to alwways put yourself as a user, the dumbest user you could be.
Which one is the best for your users e.g. bunny-on-stool or bunny-stool
Google will ignore hyfens and stopwords (the, a, on, ....)
-
Typically you want to minimize url length by removing stop words, prepositions, etc. unless they are creating value within the URL. e.g. bunny-on-stool vs. bunny-stool
I wouldn't go as far as to say it is bad for SEO, but there are some schools of thought that minimizing the number of words in a URL "concentrates" relevance around those terms remaining. That being said, I'm confident Google already ignores common stop words and phrases, and this isn't something I would go about changing in an existing URL structure.
You'll notice some sites, such as wordpress, by default remove the prepositions, etc. from the URLs.
-
Yes, it's perfectly fine. It used to be that you actually needed to use hyphens to separate words in the URL (so search engines could understand) but now you don't need to do that.
So, it is OK to use hyphens in URLs.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Virtual URL Google not indexing?
Dear all, We have two URLs: The main URL which is crawled both by GSC and where Moz assigns our keywords is: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/ The second one is called a virtual url by our developpers: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/signedandunsignedprintsforsale/ This is currently not indexed by Google. We have been linking to the second URL and I am unable to see if this is passing juice/anything on to the main one /banksy/ Is it a canonical? The /banksy/ is the one that is being picked up in serps/by Moz and worry that the two similar URLs are splitting the signal. Should I redirect from the second to the first? Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | TAT1000 -
Page Optimization Error
Hi, I am trying to track a page optimization feature for one of my project, https://shinaweb.com but i keep getting this below error: "PAGE OPTIMIZATION ERROR
On-Page Optimization | | shinawebnavid
There was a problem loading this page. Please make sure the page is loading properly and that our user-agent, rogerbot, is not blocked from accessing this page." I checked robots.txt file, it all looks fine. Not sure what is the problem? Is it a problem with Moz or the website?0 -
Using h2 for category on ecommerce website
Hi, I am working on an ecommerce site and the main category - lets call them car widgets - is using a h1 at the top of the page which is great. There are 4 sub categories on the page - lets call one of them red widget. The only content on the page is the sub category name and an image. Should the sub category red widget use a h2? Thanks S
On-Page Optimization | | bedynamic0 -
URL Structure on Category Pages
Hi, Currently, we having the following URL Structure o our product pages: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/283/All_Products.html Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/4/Clothing.html Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/product/LOAD-HE-WOM/Assorted-High-End-Women-Clothing-Lots.html?cid=4 Since we are going to use another frontend system, we are thinking about re-working on this URL Structure, using something like this: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/ Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/ Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/product-title/ I understand this is better for SEO and user experience. However, we already have good traffic on the current URL Structure. Should we use same left-side filters on Category Pages as in All Products Page? Since we are using Faceted Navigation, when users filter the Category (e.g. Clothing) they will see same page as Clothing Category Page. Is that an issue for Duplicate Content? Since we are a wholesale company - I understand is using "/wholesale/products/" in URL for all product pages a good idea? If so, should we avoid word "wholesale" in product-title to avoid repeated word in URL? For us, SKU in URL helps the company employees and maybe some clients identify the link. However, what do you think of using the SEO-friendly product-title, and 301 redirect it to www.viatrading.com/BRTA-LN-DISHRACKS/, so 1st link is only used by company members and Canonicalized 2nd is the only one seen by general public? Thank you,
On-Page Optimization | | viatrading10 -
Url structure with dash or slash
Hi There We have a content website. We don't rank well category image related searches but we get quite good traffic for those keywords. Those keywords are mostly like "category images". We want to change our url structure and we have 2 options now. 1- domain.com/category/category-images 2-domain.com/category/images option 1 repeats the category name so it looks spammy option 2 doesn't really have the keyword. any ideas which one tho choose? Thanks! ps: we don't want to use domain.com/category-images (too many root link)
On-Page Optimization | | muminaydin0 -
URLs and folder structure for an E-commerce
Hi there !-) I´m helping a friend who has a e-commerce about nail polish in Brazil. I´m a little in doubt about the urls and folder structure. Two questions: 1. There are 10 products per category and 50 categories. Should I put them all in the root folder or creat 2 major categories ( 25 sub-categories each one)? 2. Whats the better product page url ( the store has around 500) nailpolish.com/IMPORT/BRAND/NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT OR nailpolish.com/COMPLETE-NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT Whats the best recomandation?
On-Page Optimization | | SeoMartin10 -
Website Speed Testing Tools
I have been experimenting with a number of plugins to speed up the loading of my wordpress site and find that website speed testing tools are all over the map when it comes to results. Even the same tool can produce vastly different results. Does anyone have experience with one that is both dependable and consistent?
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
No Data Available for this URL
Hi,
On-Page Optimization | | ostiguyj
I really don't understand why I have this message "No data available for this URL"
in my SEOMOZ campain. (www.bienchezsoi.ca) When I look at my page rank, I get a score of 0 I have no idea of to fix it. Please help. Thanks0