How to Create a User-Friendly URL
Both your user experience and search engine optimization (SEO) benefit from improved URLs. To determine which URLs should be top on the list, search engines like Google will look at a variety of characteristics. Search engines and potential visitors rely on URLs to describe a web page. As a result, they ought to be truthful, alluring, and unforgettable. Here, we offer the top six guidelines for designing accessible URLs.
6 Practices for Good URLs
- Describe What You Do – A good URL should include a phrase or term that is linked to the page content.
- Insert some Keywords – You can put the most important keywords in the beginning of the URL so the search engine spiders can easily track them. Note that do not overuse the keywords as keyword stuffing will cause your site being penalized by search engine.
- Use Hyphens, Not Underscores – Hyphens (-) are recommended by Google as hyphens are treated as spaces to separate words while the words connected by underscores (_) are counted as one word.
- Keep it SHORT! – A short URL is more memorable, recognizable and also easier to type and read. A URL that has many similar word might be viewed as keyword stuffing.
- Use Static URLs – Try to avoid using unnecessary parameters like “?”, “=”, and “&”. A static URL is easier for users and search engines to read than a dynamic URL.
- Optimize The Subdomains – It is better to use subfolders instead of subdomains unless you have a specific reason. This is because search engines might have the potential to treat subdomain as a separate entity from the main domain.
For your information, you can also use .htaccess to build a friendly URL. If you are using the long URL for your website like example.com/files/folder/sitemap.html, you can just make a user-friendly URL “example.com/sitemap” in .htaccess.
