Tips for writing successful URLs

I think that the article will prove useful, if only to consolidate the material.

Creating effective URLs is an important aspect when designing a website that has an impact on user experience, SEO, and the overall experience of your content. Understanding the key principles of URL composition can improve user experience, increase search visibility, and make site navigation more intuitive. Optimal URLs should be clear, meaningful, concise, contain keywords, be separated by hyphens, and maintain consistency in structure. Using these principles will help you create readable, understandable, and SEO-friendly URLs that help users successfully interact with your website.

No matter how much you talk about it, the rake still comes over and over again, it was, it is and it will be so.

Tips for building successful URLs - a quick guide to action.

1. As a description of your content
A clear URL is a good URL. If the user only having a look at the address bar of the browser (or the link) even without going to your site has a clear idea of ​​what it is, then you have done everything correctly on the first point.

Such URLs are very convenient not only for users, but also ... even recognized by search engines.

2. Avoid long addresses
Brevity is an advantage, and in Russian speaking - the sister of talent. The shorter the URL, the easier it is to copy and paste it, dictate by phone, write on a business card, or use it in hundreds of other unusual ways, all of which will undoubtedly have a positive effect on the convenience and brandness of your site.

3. Static addresses are preferred.
This is not a dogma, but I can confidently say that some search engines have a completely different attitude towards static URLs than dynamic ones.

Naturally, users are not happy with URLs where "?," "&," And "=."

4. Descriptions are better than numbers.
If you decide to have something like this in your address: seom.info/1134/cat223/ , then it is better to replace it with: seom.info/category/seo/ .
Even if the words in the address are not key or have no relation to the subject of the site at all, use the words wherever possible.

At a minimum, the benefits of this will be that it will be much easier for you to navigate.

5. Keyword never hurt
If you are going to promote your site on highly competitive inquiries, use any opportunity to gain an advantage.

The keywords in the URL are one of the important elements of your promotion strategy, create a semantic core of the site, define a list of keywords for each page, and get to work. For pages created dynamically in a CMS, create a way to integrate keywords into URLs.

6. Subdomains are not an option.
First, never use multiple subdomains (for example, siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com ) - this is not necessary, difficult, and long. Second, do not forget that the subdomains are processed by search engines separately from the root addresses, and otherwise transfer the reference weight.

In most cases, when good linking is done and the use of subdomains is minimized, this should not have any negative consequences. But I wouldn't risk it anyway. My personal opinion is that the benefits that can be obtained from the use of subdomains (to score the sickle with their sites) are insignificant compared to the potential danger of losing weight links.

I also think that search engines will not be delighted with the sickle of the subdomains of the same site, and in every way will try to stop it. Fortunately, if you are still doing this, you can make a 301 redirect to the main domain.

7. Fewer folders
The URL should not contain unnecessary folders (or words, or characters), these are like men's pants with long legs. The excess fabric is completely unnecessary and will spoil the appearance, and accordingly, your perception by others.

8. Dash best separator
When creating URLs from several words (for example, in a phrase format), a dash is the best separator (for example, seom.info/2009/09/22/domain-trust/ ) other possible separators (in order, from best to worst): underscore (_), plus (+) and space.

9. Aim for convenience
If you use a specific format, use it for the entire site, no need to make any one section different from the rest.

Stick to an intuitive URL format so that users (and those who will work on the site) understand the structure of folders and pages within your site.

This is a general rule that can be applied to different platforms. You do not need to reinvent the wheel, it is enough to use what has already been tested and has proven itself well in practice.

10. Stick to lowercase letters.
Even though lowercase and uppercase letters can be used in URLs, never use uppercase letters in your website’s address structure.

If any, use 301 redirects to redirect to lower case versions of addresses.

In addition, if you have a lot of traffic type-in, then 301 redirects will redirect users who type the URL in large letters to the "correct" address.

11. Do not use someone else's
There is no point in using someone else's slightly modified URL (to which one or several characters are added or removed).

This can be misleading for users, and as a result, cause a negative reaction (no one likes to be fooled by them) and search engines are not very fond of such domain manipulations (suspecting such sites in non-original content).

Some examples

https://intellect.icu/gp/detail.html/111-333-444?_encoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=432434
The address lacks content descriptions, no keywords are used, and is very long. This and the completely useless data in the address make it disgusting.
https://intellect.icu/view_item.php?listing_id=477443&pic_id=2
Even though this is one of my favorite sites, the URL does not include any description of the content, uses several dynamic parameters, and uses equals and underscores.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=98115&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1&iwloc=A
Google should be embarrassed - they don't follow their own URL guidelines, their map site has a very bad address: long and uninformative (when would they realize that millions of people are inserting map links into emails?).
A few of the examples below are already better, but not yet perfect:

https://intellect.icu/tools/calculator/2006

Everything is almost good, it can even be assumed that the subdomain is used for branding purposes. On the one hand, they provided us with a lot of information, but at the same time, keywords were omitted from the address, and useless numbers were used at the end.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html?skipIntro=1
Nasa has useless dynamic options on the page and against all logic added /home/index.html
https://intellect.icu/fashion/fashionshows/21322/spring/newyork/womenrunway/
They tried to make the address understandable, which is great in itself, but the unseparated words and the "deep" path of 7 folders cloud the URL of this site.
In these examples, almost everything is done correctly:

https://intellect.icu/price/satellites/
Perfect! - it is short, speaks about the content of the site, static and understandable.
https://shop.intellect.icu/is/usability/usability-guidelines.html
Despite the presence of a subdomain, everything else is in perfect order.

URLs seem like the most basic things in SEO , but I’m forced to come back to this topic with almost every client.

Here I have to agree with Rand Fishkin, however much you may say about it - there will be mistakes, although the CMS developers try to make sure that this does not happen, but this is not enough.

In the end, the content manager or the one who fills the site will make mistakes, although they are usually allowed at the planning and development stage of the site.