How URL Length Affects Search Engine Placement
1. Extremely long URL's seem to be considered hard to type by a
human, therefore an attempt at spam; and 2. Given the fact that
a long URL is considered an attempt at spam, it would then seem
to be true that search engine rankings can be improved by the
use of keyphrases in a URL.
An example of the first point above would be a URL that looks
something like this:
www.roses-chrysanthemums-tulips-and-more.com. No legitimate
company would actually want this domain, nor would any human
care to type it. It is an obvious attempt to spam the search
engines. So, we remember the Golden Rule of Search Engine
Optimization. Some studies have shown that extremely long domain
names appear less frequently in the top twenty results than do
shorter ones. That being said, empirical evidence does support
search engine indexing of URL keywords. Both Google and Yahoo!,
for example, display in bold the portion of a URL that matches a
search string, which seems to me indicative of indexing.
However, I have been unable to ascertain, either personally or
through extensive research, any truly significant occurrence of
URL's in the top twenty results which contain the search string.
The lesson learned here is this: name your web site what would
be a logical name - for instance, after your business name. Make
it friendly to a human. If a search query happens to be part of
that business name, then fine. Don't, however, engage in keyword
stuffing in the selection of the URL.
About the author:
Prabhjot kaur working with A-1 as SEO anayst. A-1 internetdesign
blog is a place to learn search engine optimization techniques
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