• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. Should I use an acronym in my URL?

        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.

        Should I use an acronym in my URL?

        On-Page Optimization
        3
        5
        2917
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • MeasureEverything
          MeasureEverything last edited by

          I know that Google understands various acronyms. Example: If I search for CRM System, it knows i'm searching for a customer relationship management system. However, will it recognize less known acronyms? I have a page geared specifically for SAP data archiving for human capital management systems. For those in the industry, they simply call it HCM. Here is how I view my options:

          Option #1: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/human-capital-management

          Option #2: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm

          Option #3: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm-human-capital-management

          With option #3, i'm capturing the acronym AND the full phrase. This doesn't make my URL overly long either. Of course, in my content i'll reference both. What does everyone else think about the URL?

          -Alex

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Shawn_Huber
            Shawn_Huber last edited by

            I agree with Kevin, use what is common for those that are searching for the information, and think using both is a good idea. In my industry it is common to see both city and airport code in the URL

            Example of what I commonly see:

            http://www.kayak.com/flight-routes/United-States-US0/Seattle-Tacoma-Intl-SEA

            http://www.kayak.com/flight-routes/Los-Angeles-LAX/Seattle-Tacoma-Intl-SEA

            http://flights.expedia.com/flights-from-seattle-to-los-angeles-sea-to-lax/

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • KevinBudzynski
              KevinBudzynski last edited by

              Alex, I prefer to have the most relevant term in the url. No big issues with what your doing except the url being a bit more difficult to understand. If you do decide on one term, I don't think you will be missing out on traffic for the other term as the rest of your on-page seems to be optimized properly for the that term as well. Good luck!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
              • MeasureEverything
                MeasureEverything @KevinBudzynski last edited by

                Thanks. I agree that it makes it a bit more difficult to read. I had planned on putting "Human Capital Management (HCM)" in the meta description and page title, but will likely use just the acronym in the body. Since that's easier to read, maybe I should do the same in the URL by placing the acronym at the end of the phrase instead of the beginning. That eliminates the readability issue and incorporates the acronym. While people mostly use the acronym, there are so many keywords in the phrase and I don't want to miss out on that.

                What do you think?

                Thanks for your fast response.

                -Alex

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • KevinBudzynski
                  KevinBudzynski last edited by

                  IMHO, whatever the prospect is more likely to query use that in your url since it will be highlighted. I would probably not group them together as it makes the url a bit more difficult to read (so options 1 and 2 will work). Furthermore, whatever you chose I would put in the meta description "Human Capital Management (HCM)..." in case the prospect choose one or the other and include both variations on the landing page.

                  MeasureEverything 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • lukegj

                    Is the URL Matching the Page Title Important?

                    Hello I have tried searching for an answer on this but I can't get a clear answer due to the results when searching for URL title. I have just launched our second Shopify site for one of our brands. My first site launched in 2014 but when I launched I didn't pay much heed to SEO for page titles, URLs, etc so have retrospectively fixed this over time. For my Shopify site just launching I want to get it as right as possible from the start (learning from mistakes). My question is regarding URLs and what my approach should be for better SEO. So, I have a page with a Title of Newton Leather Wallets, Purses, Card Holders & Glasses Cases and the URL is https://www.tumbleandhide.com/collections/newton-leather-wallets-card-holders It was my understanding that I should try and make the URL reflect the Page Title more accurately. The problem is that this takes the character count to 77. On other pages it can be in the 80s. Will the above link be better for SEO than say just https://www.tumbleandhide.com/collections/newton I am just wary of the URL's being too long as my Moz Site Crawl is returning a lot of URLs that are too long. Thanks in Advance.

                    On-Page Optimization | | lukegj
                    0
                  • Estherpuntu

                    Ecommerce URLs with numbers

                    Hi everybody! I have to optimize an ecommerce where somebody has previously done the SEO optimization, although the URLs have numbers before the product's name They have told me that these numbers are useful to find the products, so I think it shouldn't be really bad if I don't redirect them to "clear" ones. For example: /colesterol-sobrepeso/2217-hc-grass-capsulas-duras-15-capsulas.html > /colesterol-sobrepeso/hc-grass-capsulas-duras-15-capsulas.html Am I right? After all, they contain the keywords and the subfolders are also ok. Or it would be better if I redirect the whole site? Thanks!

                    On-Page Optimization | | Estherpuntu
                    0
                  • conversiontactics

                    How to peroperly use h1 , h2 and h3 tag on your website.

                    Is it better to have different h1 for each page or have the same h1 across the site. I am using h1 fin wordpress for beside that  I have 4 more h1 in the same page how to properly use h2 and h3 can we have muliple h2 on a page. what would be an ideal hx tag order be ? h1
                    h2
                    h2- h3 h3 If anyone can provide some answers Many thanks

                    On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics
                    0
                  • crazymikesapps1

                    How to re-follow using the WPSEO plugin

                    Hello, I unindexed numerous blog low quality blog posts and nofollowed them at the same time using the Advanced meta tab for the Yoast WPSEO plugin. I am trying to reindex them, which I figured out and can successfully do, What I cannot figure out is these posts will not return to follow status and remain nofollow. I have been recreating the blog posts, but this is very time consuming. Is there some way to do this without have to reduplicate a new blog post? I Googled this and searched MOZ with no luck. thank you Mike

                    On-Page Optimization | | crazymikesapps1
                    0
                  • JohnHuynh

                    Solve duplicate content issues by using robots.txt

                    Hi, I have a primary website and beside that I also have some secondary websites with have same contents with primary website. This lead to duplicate content errors. Because of having many URL duplicate contents, so I want to use the robots.txt file to prevent google index the secondary websites to fix the duplicate content issue. Is it ok? Thank for any help!

                    On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
                    0
                  • Amped

                    Question about url structure for large real estate website

                    I've been running a large real estate rental website for the past few years and on May 8, 2013 my Google traffic dropped by about 50%. I'm concerned that my current url structure might be causing thin content pages for certain rental type + location searches. My current directory structure is:
                    domain.com/home-rentals/california/
                    domain.com/home-rentals/california/beverly-hills/
                    domain.com/home-rentals/california/beverly-hills/90210/
                    domain.com/apartment-rentals/california/
                    domain.com/apartment-rentals/california/beverly-hills/
                    domain.com/apartment-rentals/california/beverly-hills/90210/
                    etc.. I was thinking of changing it to the following:
                    domain.com/rentals/california/
                    domain.com/rentals/california/beverly-hills/
                    domain.com/rentals/california/beverly-hills/90210/ ** Note: I'd provide users the ability to filter their results by rental type - by default all types would be displayed. Another question - my listing pages are currently displayed as:
                    domain.com/123456 And I've been thinking of changing it to:
                    domain.com/123456-123-Street-City-State-Zip Should I proceed with both changes - one or the one - neither - or something else I'm not thinking of? Thank you in advance!!

                    On-Page Optimization | | Amped
                    0
                  • BostonWright

                    Is it ok to use encoded special characters in meta titles?

                    I've read blog posts stating that encoding special characters in title tags is both ok and not ok. Any definitive answer out there? Do the extra characters from adding encoding count towards the total number of characters that Google displays in SERPs? Or do they just count as one character?

                    On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright
                    0
                  • matt-14567

                    Does it matter if your URL ends in .net or .com?

                    Someone told me that having a URL that ends in .net (instead of .com) will hurt my site's SEO. Is that true?

                    On-Page Optimization | | matt-14567
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.