URLs

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and is the blanket term for what is essentially an address – where to find something on the Web. The URL could refer to just the domain name, the domain name with the directory and / or page name included. It appears likely that search engines such as Google take into account aspects of URLs when ranking pages.

What most people understand to be the domain name e.g. the domainname.co.uk can have a real effect on the relevance and importance of a web page in the search engine ranking system. Some top level domains (TLD) are likely to be more trusted and potentially more highly ranked by search engines. With this theory in mind .com could be a good general choice. A domain with a local / country code TLD such as .co.uk for use in the UK could gain preference in the UK search engine results. Some domains however represent more focused and restricted organisations e.g. .edu or .gov and aren’t appropriate for use with commercial company websites. These restricted domains could however be preferred by search engines to newer TLDs such as .biz or .info. Trust is important to search engines and domain conventions and restrictions are also taken into account. For these reasons it’s important to choose the most appropriate type of domain name in the first place in order to give the best possible ranking chances for your content.

Older is Better?

It is often the case that older domains rank highly in the search engines. Once again there may be an element of ‘trust’ attached to older domains by search engines. This could be due in part to spammers’ websites and domains being short lived. It is possible therefore that search engines may apply an extra positive weighting to pages linked with older domains. It is also likely that many pages at older domains have attracted many more high quality links over time than new pages. Since high quality links are highly valued by search engines such as Google in increasing a page’s ‘importance’, its Google PageRank™, and therefore improving its position in the search engines, this may also go a long way to explaining why many pages at older domains rank highly.

When registering a new domain, there is a theory that by registering a domain name which contains a highly relevant key phrase can to an extent (when used in combination with other SEO elements) offset some of the value which may be given to domains for simply being ‘older’.

Page URLs

Giving pages names / URLs which are made up of the key phrase which is most relevant to the subject of the pages can contribute to the relevance of those pages to the key phrase as far as the search engines are concerned. Although a home page will always be called ‘index’ or ‘default’, other pages can be given highly appropriate names in order to help them rank more highly e.g. important-key-phrase.html

Page URLs for static languages such as html are very easy to name with a key phrase. Dynamic languages and programs / platforms / CMS / ecommerce packages using dynamic languages such Active Server Pages (asp) can often lead to page names which don’t naturally contain key phrases, and also contain large amounts of characters which could prove challenging for search engines to take into account when looking for relevance. For example, such URLs often contain the = and ? characters in addition to a group of essentially ‘meaningless’ letters and numbers. These types of URLs can be assigned more ‘meaningful’ key phrases, but this is a process which should be undertaken carefully by somebody who has experience and knowledge in this area.