Arty Ziff Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 I am using a CMS to manage site content. First, this is a "general interest" web site with a particular theme, but it is *NOT* a "reference" web site where users will be inclined to return to the same page over and over. Think of my web site as a "magazine" web site. Given these perimeters, what are the pros and cons and general opinions about URL re-writing verses the URL with a query string as the address? From an SEO perspective, does it matter anymore, what with very intelligent indexing spiders? How do users feel about it, do they even care anymore? In the past, I might have considered URL re-writing from a human interaction standpoint, and perhaps ease of indexing. But things have changed since the late 90's, I think most *people* are no longer really influenced by the physical structure of the URL, and possibly the same thing applies to search index spiders. Opinions? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/258500-content-management-systems-and-url-re-writing/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuickOldCar Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Rewriting the urls makes it friendlier to view for users, and also helps the seo. If don't mind queries in your links it's fine, and ensures the link would always work. If were to rewrite them, just do it like so something like http://mysite.com/index.php?category=animals&species=cat&topic=cleaning to http://mysite.com/category/animals/species/cat/topic/cleaning If are linking to article id's or something similar with useless information to the user, it would be best to use fancy permalinks and titles http://mysite.com/article.php?id=548607 to http://mysite.com/article/how-to-clean-your-cat About search engines, having more words in the url helps, it won't matter if are characters or a slash seperating them, the words within are found the same. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/258500-content-management-systems-and-url-re-writing/#findComment-1325062 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arty Ziff Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 Rewriting the urls makes it friendlier to view for users, and also helps the seo. Well, that's something I'm questioning. Sure, "back in the day" when people might have to remember a URL, but I wonder if that's how people manage their "favorites". About search engines, having more words in the url helps Does it? I'm wondering because I think that search engine spiders and search engine ranking are more complex than that these days. I guess I'm wondering if the URL makes any difference at all in the context of modern SEO technology as well as how visitors really manage their surfing... Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/258500-content-management-systems-and-url-re-writing/#findComment-1325109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuickOldCar Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Yes it does matter more words in the url. In my search engine I look for keywords in both the url and also the title to obtain results, or advanced method to be more specific. To me it would make more sense to have the relevant word in the url,title and description if want to be seen more. Also to rank that link by weight of occurances and locations related to what searched for. Urls are gathered when a spider hits a webpage, then that url is usually visited by the crawler to gather more urls and also obtain the information of that visited url. They could easily have a priority system scraping urls that have higher ranked keywords first, but this is something a search engine might not want to reveal about their algorithm to website owners. Realize there are more types of bots out there than the standard search engine, some just collect urls, or urls and their titles and never visit the actual page for the rest of the information. Here's my thinking on it...if can do it easily then do it. If the url is just linking to simple categories,articles or pages, do the rewrites. It's a standard practice and what people expect to see. If your site has multiple type query parameters and they can also change, leave them be. (don't risk breaking something that works) Having no rewrite rules for url's doesn't seem to hamper youtube or phpfreaks for instance. But whatever you do, don't have duplicate type links on your site, ending with empty queries, a trailing slash and also no slash, the www and also no www, or have empty fragments. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/258500-content-management-systems-and-url-re-writing/#findComment-1325141 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiderwell Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 search spiders are probably better these days but they like friendly urls over querystrings, my last job included taking sites from the querystring style to friendly urls as exampled above, the purpose being to improve seo ranking. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/258500-content-management-systems-and-url-re-writing/#findComment-1325365 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 Keywords in the URL will give you a small advantage in terms of indexing, but these days they're not by any means required to be successful. Your number one concern should be your content. Keep it rich, fresh, clean, semantic, etc. That's where you'll reap the biggest reward. I'm not saying don't add them, as they can have cosmetic benefits as well. Don't expect them to shoot you up the rankings of all of a sudden though. They could easily have a priority system scraping urls that have higher ranked keywords first, but this is something a search engine might not want to reveal about their algorithm to website owners. Google have said themselves they don't pay that level of attention to keywords in the URL, it's all about the content. Realize there are more types of bots out there than the standard search engine, some just collect urls, or urls and their titles and never visit the actual page for the rest of the information. Yes, but who cares about them? Having no rewrite rules for url's doesn't seem to hamper youtube or phpfreaks for instance Exactly. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/258500-content-management-systems-and-url-re-writing/#findComment-1325385 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.