URL Structure

It’s very important to start building your URL structures correctly from the beginning of any websites creation.  All of the search engine algorithms due place a certain amount of significance behind the keyword terms/phrases that are in a given post/page’s URL.  Again, we fall back onto the keyword research you’ve done before starting your website and also the specific content that is located at the URL.  This will greatly help your search engine rankings because Google and similar spiders put a decent weight value for keywords INSIDE the URL parameter.

URL structure should reflect your keywords within 30 or 40 charecters, don’t drag out URLs and spammy long text.

The general rules are don’t spam URLs, really long and run-on domain pages/posts do not do well in search engine rankings for any decent or high competition volumes.  Stray away from this tactic and just include the primary keywords and terms for the content.  You’ll soon be building a large web of keyword targeted URLs, that will help distribute page rank and find more rankings and weight in relevant keyword niches and results.

Example:

http://www.cars4sale.com/cheap-cars-california

http://www.cars4sale.com/page42-sqlk-4

Usable keywords by search engines

1st URL structure = cars + sale + (“cheap + cars + california” = 3 keywords to boost ranking results)

2nd URL structure = cars + sale +( “page42-sqlk-4″ = no help in search rankings)

The first URL is much stronger in gaining better search result weight for that specific page.  All search engines prefer descriptive URL’s over “generic or automated” links.  Now this does not mean we should write massively long URL structures to cram in keywords, but, make the first few words keyword targeted.  Once you start adding content and building many diverse URL structures in your XML sitemap, you’ll start seeing some success at receiving organic traffic from long-tail keyword results.  A lot of the time if your site is an authority, you can get massive traffic through 1,000′s and 1,000′s of pages and posts.  This can provide a very stable flow of visitors and possible buyers for your products/services.
301 Redirection Tip -
Do this from the start of your website to help limit 404 errors and redirect issues if you need to reset/change them later.  If you find certain situations that arise force you to use a redirection or rel=”canonical” tag, always go for the 301 redirection.  This is the most widely accepted and universally allowed style of redirecting web pages to another URL or even domain.  The HTML tag, rel=”canonical” has been used in many malicious, virus ridden, trojan harboring and other malware related websites, thus it has been categorized as a poor quality and devalued practice, so do not incorporate these tags into your domain for any reason.  Use a 301 redirection which will transfer page rank and search engine worthiness in a responsible manner.
Since the panda update, Google has frowned upon any HTML use of the rel=”canonical” tags.  Matt Cutt’s described that there has been a lot of malicious use of this tag, specifically for trojans, virus, and malware.  This has been installed on webpages and then people are “redirected” to instant downloads of malicious software, virus, and other harmful programs.  Make sure to keep 301 redirections only, if other issues are there, re-design your pages and templates as needed.  Don’t use rel=”canonical”, there is no reason any longer.

WordPress Users SEO Tip = 301 Redirection plugin

• No more canonical tags
• Very user friendly
• East copy + paste URL redirection
• 404 Error reporting and more