{"id":2368,"date":"2020-04-02T19:57:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T19:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/?p=2368"},"modified":"2025-05-05T12:30:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T12:30:20","slug":"url-structure-and-seo-a-brief-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/url-structure-and-seo-a-brief-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"URL Structure and SEO: A Brief Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Uniform Resource Locator (URL), is one of the most common yet most frequently-misunderstood elements of a website. It&#8217;s also been an integral part of the Internet more or less since its earliest days, providing a human-readable means of connecting to unique pages on the web. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Each URL consists of four primary components.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The protocol. <\/strong>Generally, most websites created with an eye for search engine optimization (SEO) use HTTPS, a secure version of the standard website connection protocol. HTTPS <a href=\"https:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2014\/08\/https-as-ranking-signal.html\">has been recognized as a ranking factor by Google since at least 2014<\/a>. Other protocols may include FTP: for file transfers and mail to: for email, though these don&#8217;t tend to see particularly frequent use on the modern web.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The domain name. <\/strong>The unique identifier for your website as a whole. This is, in essence, a marker for your digital brand.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The top-level domain. <\/strong>An identifier that goes at the end of your domain name.<strong> <\/strong>Generally, .com is the most common top-level domain, but there are also several regional variants, as well as top-level domains related to specific industries.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The path. <\/strong>This refers to a specific folder or location on your website, such as a blog post.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">URL structure used to be a major ranking factor for Google <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>back in the early days of SEO. It does still play <em>some <\/em>role today, but not as much as it used to. Where URL structure is concerned, it&#8217;s now far more important that a URL is easy to remember and understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good URL is concise while also providing a clear snapshot of the content a page contains. <a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/learn\/seo\/url\">Per SEO expert Moz<\/a>, creating URLs that meet these qualifications requires that you follow a few best practices.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Stay away from ID numbers and codes. A good URL should consist exclusively of natural language keywords and phrases.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Keep your URL at 100 characters or less.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stick to lowercase letters, as alternating between lowercase and uppercase may cause duplicate content issues.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Avoid URL parameters such as UTM codes. If you have to use them when sharing content, use a URL shortener such as bit.ly.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use hyphens to separate words as necessary, and avoid other non-textual characters such as underscores and spaces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/technical-seo\/url-structure\/\">Search engine marketing publication Search Engine Journal<\/a> provides a bit of additional advice, as well.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Look at keyword search volume, and assign the highest-volume keyword to a page&#8217;s URL.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Create your URLs with a clear hierarchy. A URL should flow naturally from domain name to category to sub-category.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use 301 redirects and the canonical tag to avoid duplicate content. While a single page may have multiple URLs associated with it, only <em>one <\/em>should be treated as canonical.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Apply your URL structure consistently across your website.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Keep URLs as static as possible.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The URL is one aspect of SEO that&#8217;s not going to go away anytime soon. What&#8217;s more, URL structure is important for more than just search engines. Well-designed URLs are also a cornerstone of good user experience, allowing people to easily navigate your site and remember how to find the pages that are most important to them.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Uniform Resource Locator (URL), is one of the most common yet most frequently-misunderstood elements of a website. It&#8217;s also been an integral part of the Internet more or less since its earliest days, providing a human-readable means of connecting to unique pages on the web. Each URL consists of four primary components.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2368"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4503,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368\/revisions\/4503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aseohosting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}