• 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. Technical SEO
        4. Should me URLs be uppercase or lowercase

        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 me URLs be uppercase or lowercase

        Technical SEO
        7
        9
        12943
        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.
        • JustinStupid
          JustinStupid last edited by

          I'm in the middle of doing a bunch of 301 redirects for me site. Should I make them Lowercase, uppercase, or does it matter? Also, do I want to be using hyphens (-), or underscores (_)?

          Any other tips?

          EX:

          http://www.stupid.com/golf-slippers.html

          OR

          http://www.stupid.com/Golf-Slippers.html

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • john4math
            john4math @Darden last edited by

            Are you serving the same page for both /MBA and /mba?  You should set up a 301 redirect from one to the other.

            In Analytics, you can set a custom filter to make your URLs case insensitive, but I don't believe that'll fix the data currently in your account, it'll only fix them going forward.  That process is outlined here: http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=90397.

            My URLs are all lowercased so I can't actually find an example in my account to test, but when I do an advenced filter and select Include Page with the match type of "Matching RegExp" and try URLs with uppercase characters, Analytics appears to be making the query case insensitive.  So you can try that as well.

            If the prior paragraph didn't work for you, you can do this on a URL by URL basis, by doing an advanced search by regular expression and substituting in "[M|m][B|b][A|a]" for "mba".

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Darden
              Darden @john4math last edited by

              John and Team,

              Suppose I have a site with 8000 pages and a small percentage of them in google analytics are showing up twice because the pages are linked through upper and lowercase links.  So in Google analytics (GA) there would be two rows:

              http:///www.blah.com/MBA

              http://www.blah.com/mba

              Is there a type of query I can run in GA to allow me to find all pages where the url is the same except for the upper and lower casing?  I want to go into GA at Standard Reporting -> Content -> all pages and do an advanced search.

              john4math 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Thos003
                Thos003 @ezclickmedia last edited by

                Is the Short Title a redirect or the actual URL? If it's a redirect then it shouldn't be a problem. You can also use canonical if you want to use the lowercase and host the other page. But that's is a sloppy solution.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ezclickmedia
                  ezclickmedia @Thos003 last edited by

                  I agree with this completely. Lowercase with hyphens is my preference. Some E-commerce  companies (let's use Volusion as an example), give you the choice to use hyphens or underscores in a product's URL. This is nice and they even offer you the ability to write what the URL will be under the "Short TItle" option. However, this "Short Title" option is what will show in your URL AND the link text for a "Related Product" listing on the site. So if I want the link text to look normal when someone sees a Related Product link, I have to capitalize the text I put for the "Short Title" which will then cause the URL to be in Caps as well. This is a pretty significant flaw in their system and I have alerted them to the problem numerous times. Hopefully they will get it fixed soon.

                  Thos003 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Thos003
                    Thos003 last edited by

                    I agree. Lowercase in the example above. For ease of direct typing.

                    But when advertising just a website URL in print offline, caps. www.BulwarkPestControl.com is easier to read than www.bulwarkpestcontrol.com.

                    ezclickmedia 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                    • sprynewmedia
                      sprynewmedia @john4math last edited by

                      The fact a Caps create a 404 error on LAMP site is a pet peeve of mine - so is the fact Google thinks mix cases on IIS are separate (thus duplicate) URLs.

                      Too arbitrary to be picky about and cause user frustration.

                      Thanks goodness at lease DoMaInS can be what ever.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • john4math
                        john4math last edited by

                        I like lowercase because when I type URLs by hand, I don't think to capitalize things.  If you capitalize things, you have to get the casing right to make the URL valid (unless you're setting up all sorts of fancy redirects), otherwise you a 404 and are left scratching your head.  Also, I agree with Dan that it looks better.

                        Hyphens vs. underscores is a classic question; Matt Cutts says to go with hyphens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SFVfDIS5k.  I like that better too.

                        sprynewmedia Darden 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
                        • evolvingSEO
                          evolvingSEO last edited by

                          Justin

                          I personally prefer lowercase because to me it looks better.  And I prefer hyphens for the same reason, and it seems like these days everyone from WordPress right to the SEOmoz site does it that way.

                          -Dan

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                          • 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

                          • Redooo

                            Appending a code at the end of a URL

                            url seo

                            Hi All, Some real estate/ news companies have a code appended to the end of a URL https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-ormiston-141747584 https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/childcare-centre-could-face-prosecution-for-leaving-child-on-hot-bus-20230320-p5ctqs.html Can I ask if there's any negative SEO implications for doing this? Cheers Dave

                            Technical SEO | | Redooo
                            0
                          • Dingos

                            URL structure for same product in multiple categories?

                            url inspection breadcrumbs technical seo seo tactics

                            Hello everyone ! I am building an ecom store using wordpress. I have assigned multiple categories to the same product. What should be the URL structure when users are navigating with different product categories? Categories Assigned: tshirt, blue, striped
                            Product Name: blue-striped-tshirt Option 01: Matching site navigation breadcrumb to product url URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt
                            Breadcrumb - home/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/blue/blue-striped-tshirt (canonical to 1 product page)
                            Breadcrumb - home/color/blue/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/striped/blue-striped-tshirt (canonical to 1 product page)
                            Breadcrumb - home/type/striped/blue-striped-tshirt Option 02: Same product urls and different breadcrumbs based on user site navigation URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt
                            Breadcrumb - home/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt (url same as 1 product page)
                            Breadcrumb - home/color/blue/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt (url same as 1 product page)
                            Breadcrumb - home/type/striped/blue-striped-tshirt I have decided to got with Option 01 so that the product in each category can be ranked according to each category keyword. Which option is the best according to your experience or is there any other best practice?

                            Technical SEO | | Dingos
                            0
                          • RaquelSaiz

                            Same URL for languages sub-directories

                            Hi All, I have a main domain and 9 different subdirectories for languages,  example: www.example.com/page.html www.example.com/uk/page-uk.html www.example.com/es/page-es.html we are implementing hreflang tags for the languages, but we are thinking to get rid of the dashes on the languages URL: -uk or -es, so it will be: www.example.com/page.html www.example.com/uk/page.html www.example.com/es/page.hrml would this be a problem? to have same page names even if they are in different subdirectories? would we need to add canonical tags, at lease for the main domain URLs? www.kornferry.com/page.html Thank you, Rachel

                            Technical SEO | | RaquelSaiz
                            0
                          • vcj

                            Include or exclude noindex urls in sitemap?

                            We just added tags to our pages with thin content. Should we include or exclude those urls from our sitemap.xml file? I've read conflicting recommendations.

                            Technical SEO | | vcj
                            0
                          • BT2009

                            How do I deindex url parameters

                            Google indexed a bunch of our URL  parameters. I'm worried about duplicate content. I used the URL parameter tool in webmaster to set it so future parameters don't get indexed. What can I do to remove the ones that have already been indexed? For example, Site.com/products and site.com/products?campaign=email have both been indexed as separate pages even though they are the same page. If I use a no index I'm worried about de indexing the product page. What can I do to just deindexed the URL parameter version? Thank you!

                            Technical SEO | | BT2009
                            0
                          • Vacatia_SEO

                            Url folder structure

                            I work for a travel site and we have pages for properties in destinations and am trying to decide how best to organize the URLs basically we have our main domain, resort pages and we'll also have articles about each resort so the URL structure will actually get longer:
                            A. domain.com/main-keyword/state/city-region/resort-name
                            _    domain.com/family-condo-for-rent/orlando-florida/liki-tiki-village_ _   domain.com/main-keyword-in-state-city/resort-name-feature    _
                            _   domain.com/family-condo-for-rent/orlando-florida/liki-tiki-village/kid-friend-pool_ B. Another way to structure would be to remove the location and keyword folders and combine. Note that some of the resort names are long and spaces are being replaced dynamically with dashes. 
                            ex. domain.com/main-keyword-in-state-city/resort-name
                            _      domain.com/family-condo-for-rent-in-orlando-florida/liki-tiki-village_ _      domain.com/main-keyword-in-state-city/resort-name-feature_
                            _      domain.com/family-condo-for-rent-in-orlando-florida/liki-tiki-village-kid-friend-pool_ Question: is that too many folders or should i combine or break up? What would you do with this? Trying to avoid too many dashes.

                            Technical SEO | | Vacatia_SEO
                            0
                          • AJ234

                            404 errors on non-existent URLs

                            Hey guys and gals, First Moz Q&A for me and really looking forward to being part of the community. I hope as my first question this isn't a stupid one but I was just struggling to find any resource that dealt with the issue and am just looking for some general advice. Basically a client has raised a problem with 404 error pages - or the lack thereof- on non-existent URLs on their site; let's say for example: 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas' Obviously content never existed on this page so its not like you're saying 'hey, sorry this isn't here anymore'; its more like- 'there was never anything here in the first place'. Currently in this fictitious example typing in 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas**'** returns the same content as the 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels' page which I appreciate isn't ideal. What I was wondering is how far do you take this issue- I've seen examples here on the seomoz site where you can edit the URI in a similar manner and it returns the same content as the parent page but with the alternate address. Should 404's be added across all folders on a site in a similar way? How often would this scenario be and issue particularly for internal pages two or three clicks down? I suppose unless someone linked to a page with a misspelled URL... Also would it be worth placing 301 redirects on a small number of common mis-spellings or typos e.g. 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towles' to the correct URLs as opposed to just 404s? Many thanks in advance.

                            Technical SEO | | AJ234
                            0
                          • rakesh_patel

                            Products with discrete URLs for each color

                            here is the issue.  i have an ecommerce site that on a category page, shows each individual color for each product sold.  and there is a distinct URL for each color.  each product page shares the same content, with the only potentially differentiating factor being customer reviews (not nearly enough of these to differentiate anything). so we have URLs like: www.domain.com/product-green www.domain.com/product-yellow www.domain.com/product-red and so on. i am looking for a way to consolidate these URL while still showing all colors on the category page.  the first solution i am considering is using the hash tag.  so we would create www.domain.com/product#green, www.domain.com/product#yellow, www.domain.com/product#red.  if possible, i would set the canonical tag as www.domain.com/product. the second solution would be to use the canonical tag and keep the URLs as is.  the issue i see here is that we would need to create www.domain.com/product and show that page somewhere.  www.domain.com/product would the URL that the above color URLs would canonicalize to. what would be the preferred solution?  or is there something else?

                            Technical SEO | | rakesh_patel
                            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.