What is URL?
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator it is the abbreviation word for the string this is used for web address and denotes the location of a specific webpage. A basic URL consists of three parts such as;
- protocol,
- the host name or address,
- the resource location
A simple example of an URL that appears on the browser window like http://www.uxdmedia.com.
What is URL Structure?
URL of a specific page will serve for two things such as (1) It gives references to the particular page and (2) it helps users to redirect or locate their desired page as well.
You have seen some URLs are with www and some URLs are without www. Website URLs with www that does matter for search engines and search engines give importance to that URLs added in www.
Why Does URL Structure Matter for your Website?
There are many things need to be think while to create for a website URL structure. A well-structured URL helps to provide good visibility in search engines more so Google consistently helps the end-users to find their results and relevant results while they are search for anything. Basically developers are build website and create website URL structure and they should have knowledge to create search URL structure as search engine friendly.
- Wrong way to define URL structure:
https:// www.mydeal.com/Our_Services/Categories/website_design_hosting_company.php
- Correct way to define URL structure:
https://www.mydeal.com/services/website-design-and-hosting-company.html
URL always helps the user to identify about the page describes. However, the well-structured URL makes it easier for the users to navigate their desired site.
However, it is better crawling by search engines; this is also required to create descriptive categories and filenames as well it’s a part of On-Page Search Engine Optimization that allows you to maintain a well-organized website.
How to Create Well-structured URLs
Host name: www or non-www
Already we told you in this article what the main basic difference between www and non-www is. Google quickly crawl web pages with www host name and non-www make confuse to the Google though your content is organic still there is a delay to crawl the pages or may not be crawled for long time. But if Google lists your URL without the www then go in that way and keep consistency in the whole site structure. It is basically likely easier to adjust your efforts than to change the mind of Google’s ranking algorithm.
Hyphens rather than Underscores
Hyphen (-) is the better choice to separate words in URL structure instead of underscore (_)
Underscore basically used to declare variables in the function by developers. Search engine find easy to crawl URLs with better hyphen structure.
Mixed Case URLs
Search engine always preferred lowercase letter with separated by hyphens in the URL structure and instead of upper case letters. More so there are different types of browsers and hosting servers have some certain rules but they follow everything to Google and search engines. Keep file and folders name into lowercase don’t use uppercase for file naming conventions. If your site URL structure is mixed by lowercase and uppercase letters means there is a chance your site may blocked or creates issues by some servers or browsers.
This is better to follow up cannibalization and redirect otherwise this could harm on your SEO of your website.
Keep URLs Short and Simple
Keep page url short and simple as easy to remember for end-user and search engine. A well-structured website is very organic in terms of Search Engine Optimization and more likely to get more value by search engine crawlers.
Use relevant Keyword in URLs
Website URLs can play as a key factor in giving your content the ability to rank in the search engine. As much as possible, try to include few organic keywords in your site URLs and ensure that those are logical and useful there.
Don’t include any Numerical in URL
Especially developers are not SEO friendly. They keep URL structure according to theirs which is not good for search engine. In the url they passed is something like “http://www.mypage.com/our-plan3254.php”. However number isn’t good in URL and not user-friendly.
Try to use Single URL
Using a single URL ensuring that higher Google search ranking and better Organic SEO. It creates the great interaction between the sites, inbound links, keyword rank and page authority, domain authority and combining traffic. Choose for a “.com” domain rather than “.biz,” “.pro,” “.tel,” etc. because .com domain is more searchable and taken more visibility in the search engine rather than others. A mobile site should have single url to get more traffic this is totally different from desktop urls. While a mobile user visits the desktop site like www.mydomain.com they redirected mobile site with something like m.mydomain.com.
URL Redirects
URL redirects allow you to avoid any duplicate content and maximize the search engine. There are many scenarios where you might want to manage URL redirects for your website such as 301 redirect indicates the permanent moving of a web page from one location to another and the 301 part refers to the http status code of the redirected page.
