Main keywords as the URL slug

Cristian Level X³

July 26, 2016, 10:39 am

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Main keywords as the URL slug

After hundreds of testing and published articles, especially on Wordpress blogs, I've come to the conclusion that it's for the best to NOT use the main keyword of an article in the URL slug.

Or at least, don't use it exactly as it is. Give it another form that still haves searches or use a synonym. On pages that I used a synonym for the main keywords in the URL slug did better than the ones with exact match type of keyword.

If you are using your main keyword in the title, meta description, H1 and a couple of times inside the content, I think Google sees it as over optimization if you also put it in the URL as exacted match.

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usama1993

usama1993

I do not think so, you have to use the exact keyword in the URL but while creating backlinks use different keywords as anchor text. If we create all backlinks with our main keyword as an anchor text this will be harmful.

8 years ago

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Cristian

Cristian

Just try it and you'll see changes in your rankings. Google hates over optimization and will reward natural looking URLs and content. This is why I do my best to find ways of making an article as natural as possible in the eyes of Google.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

Seriously? I have gotten my #1 Google rankings using the exact keyword in the URL.... I always use the main keyword exactly as is in the URL. But of course not all my posts have ranked #1.

I must have a think on this. Thanks for sharing your finds Cristian, I find that very interesting.

8 years ago

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Cristian

Cristian

Try reviewing the posts that didn't go as number one. Notice if you indeed did an over-optimization and try to take it down a notch. Maybe change the URL keyword like I suggested, see if anything changes.
Then again I'm not saying don't put your exact matched keyword in the URL, I'm just saying if you already put it all over the place, maybe it isn't a good idea to have it virtually everywhere.

8 years ago

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Everett

Everett

The thing that gets me is when a website is still using stopwords in the URL slug. Are they aware that they don't need "the, an, a, of, or, many", etc? It makes me feel like I should contact them and ask them to hire me to fix their URLs, or code a function to remove those specific words from the URL when an article or page is posted.

I've haven't notice if the Community Discussions strips all the stopwords from the URL slugs, but as I'm typing this I see "the" in the URL slug.

8 years ago

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Cristian

Cristian

Haha same here mate. Not a programmer, but is there any way to exclude stopwords from the URL? Apart from wordpress plugins.

8 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. Until now, I have been using my title or main keywords as the url slug. I always thought that having the title or keywords on url will help you to get ranked higher on search engines. I will have to check your findings for myself.

7 years ago

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