- Types of URLs
- URL Formats
- Shortened URLs
- The Use of URL Parameters
- URL Optimization
- Friendly URLs
- Conclusion
An index that unifies site identification on the Internet is called a URL, or uniform resource locator. It can be used to find a certain web resource. There is a certain standard to unify web addresses. A scheme, a host, a port, a URL route, and additional parameters make up an address. A unified address gives the website a ranking benefit in search engines.
Types of URLs
There are two basic types of URLs:
- Static. This is a static address that does not contain any further parameters. It typically doesn’t alter over time or alters rarely.
- Dynamic. It is produced as a result of a particular user request. Dynamic addresses are simple to create and help you prevent duplicate content. Drawbacks include being hard to remember, being less clickable, and being challenging to replicate.
URL Formats
The main URL formats are:
- Transliteration. Commonly found in article titles. Benefits include easy perception, informative content, a beneficial impact on search engine rankings, and simple site structure viewing. Increased load on the site is a disadvantage.
- Latin URLs. Used for most links. Well handled by search engine algorithms. Used for pages of categories, subcategories and sections.
- URLs in Cyrillic. Used when a domain uses a Cyrillic alphabet. They are well-remembered yet poorly understood by English-speaking users and search engine crawlers.
Shortened URLs
Page addresses, which are condensed into a small number of characters, are what shortened URLs are. Messengers, social networks, and online advertising are examples of the application field. The message can fit into a small amount of characters when using abbreviated links. However, it’s not always a good idea to use abbreviated links. Shortened URLs should not be used in emails because they could end up in spam. Additionally, they are not advised for key areas of the website.
Specialized services are used to create shortened URLs. When selecting such a service, you should take into account factors like whether registration is required, how many links may be shortened at once, the language of the user interface, click-through rates, etc. Bit.do, Bitly.com, Clck.ru, Goo.su, and To.click are the most practical shortened link services.
Scammers might deliver files with dangerous code by using shortened URLs. The majority of ISPs frequently block them. So it’s a good idea to double-check short links to make sure they’re secure.
The Use of URL Parameters
Characters known as URL parameters are those that follow the URL and are separated by a question mark. Tracking, reordering, product filtering, searching, etc. are some of the tasks. Choosing the wrong parameters can result in a number of SEO issues:
- duplicating material;
- complicating crawling;
- impairing page ranking;
- deteriorating clickability.
The URL parameters should follow specific guidelines in order to be optimized. You must eliminate empty and pointless parameters, get rid of repetitive keys, and arrange the parameters in the address bar. This will assist in enhancing page crawling effectiveness and addressing the issue of duplicate content. Using the rel=”canonical,” Noindex, and Disallow commands, you can optimize the parameters.
URL Optimization
There are a few criteria that must be considered when optimizing URLs:
- It is advised to include at least a couple of keys in each url. They benefit both users and search bots.
- You should not the “#” symbol in your link. The index search bot removes the hashtag if it is present.
- A hyphen should be used to separate sections of the link. Do not separate words with spaces or underscores.
- To raise the site’s score, it is suggested to utilize shorter addresses. More than 75 character URLs are too long, they look bad and perform badly.
- The use of Cyrillic characters in the link is not recommended since it may result in a character set that is impossible to read.
- Human-readable links should be preferred over conventional links. These links have a greater number of hits and are more clickable.
- Avoid using dates and numbers in the links because you will have to manually replace them when the information is updated.
- Use links with the least complicated structure possible, free of extraneous details and odd components.
- Don’t use dynamic parameters and UTM-tags.
- If the meaning is not compromised, it is preferable to avoid using stop-words in the URL (from, of, for).
- Instead of the conventional Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), use HTTPS. Users and search engines are more confident when using a secure protocol.
Friendly URLs
An encoded web address shown in the address bar is known as a URL (Human Readable URL or Friendly URL). Friendly links help to determine the sort of content being used on the website. WordPress, Joomla, and other applications automatically generate conventional addresses. They are difficult to remember and have low clickability. The use of human readable URLs enables you to streamline site interaction methods and boost traffic.
The main benefits of friendly links are:
- improved site navigation
- good search engine rankings
- good visitor perception.
If the site is not created on the CMS platform, the biggest disadvantage is the requirement to manually set up human readable URLs for each page. Both manual and automatic methods can be used to build friendly URLs. If the project is based on a CMS, a plugin can be made available in the toolkit to automatically produce semantics. Make sure your links are succinct and understandable when you create them. Correctly created semantic links are simple to manually enter in or locate using voice search.
The following mistakes can happen when producing human-readable URLs:
- having an address that is longer than 90 characters (search engines truncate extra characters)
- using spaces to separate words
- complex structures
- no keywords
- using both English and transliteration in the same address.
Conclusion
URL optimization is an essential component of internal optimization that helps a site rank higher in search engine results. Link clickability and search engine page ranking are determined by proper URL selection. The URL parameters must be optimized to prevent repetitions. You can shorten links when working in a messenger using specialized services, which will make long URLs easier to read. We advise building straightforward, short URLs without complex structures. When using human-readable URLs, keywords are highlighted in the search engine, which increase the link’s visibility. The use of friendly URLs has a favorable impact on behavioral variables.
