How does the length of a URL affect SEO ranking?

How does the length of a URL affect SEO ranking?

Understanding the structure of URLs is a fundamental element of SEO. The basic rule of URLs for SEO is to make it easy for the user and search engine crawlers to understand the web page content.

Importance of URL’s for SEO

For SEO, URL is a basic but crucial element that should not be overlooked. URL includes the domain name and creates a complete address of the location of a specific resource or webpage on the internet. A website’s good URL structure provides an excellent navigational experience and will help improve the website rankings. The main advantage of URLs for SEO is that they improve the user experience. Search engines consider URLs as significant ranking factors in determining page ranking. At the same time, URLs with keywords give appreciable visibility to the website in search results. A well-written URL will also serve as an anchor text when used as a link in a blog, forum, or another website.

URL structure, the impact of it’s length on SEO and rankings

Short or Long, Which URL is good for SEO?

A URL consists of a domain name, path and protocol. They also contain specific folders or subfolders and other parameters like session ID. The best URL structure is the one that is simple, clear, and contains the primary keywords of the content without any irrelevant words and fewer folders.

A study on 1 million URLs by Backlinko showed that short URLs rank higher on Google than long URLs. So, it is clear that the length of the URL plays a key role and can impact SEO.

The ideal URL should be more human-readable, making them better for users. Aim for a length lower than 60 characters. Search engines can handle any URL size shorter than 2,083 characters, but shorter URLs are more likely to be remembered and more helpful for the users. They are also readable and easier to share, making them more click-worthy by the users.

Try to keep the structure relatively flat with fewer folders because content hidden too deep behind numerous folders can be a barrier to search engine crawlers and make it less visible. At the same time, making them so short that they no longer hold meaning, will not be beneficial for your rankings. Avoid capital letters, alphanumeric and special characters. Preferably use hyphens and underscores to separate words instead of space and avoid keyword stuffing. When possible, it is a good idea to match the page title with the URL.

In 2018, Google stated that page rankings don’t get affected by the number of folders added in URL, but the page depth does; that is how many clicks to get to a page from the home page. So, it’s all about making things easy for the user and SEO friendly.

Conclusion

Long URLs can have a negative impact on user experience and SEO. Consider the best practice tips discussed in the blog and put your best to make sure your URLs are as good and realistic as they can be. When things are accessible for the users, it can be highly beneficial for your website rankings.

To watch the latest Google SEO Office Hours, please check out the video below:

Relevance or Speed, What prioritizes in Google Search Ranking?

Relevance or Speed, What prioritizes in Google Search Ranking?

Google ranking systems are designed to find the most relevant content that is close to search queries in a fraction of a second, sorting through hundreds of web pages and presenting them in a way that helps you find what you’re looking for.

Google uses a special trademarked series of algorithms called PageRank to generate its SERP results. In response to a query searched by the user, it displays the search results based on a large index of keywords. It also assigns each web page a relevancy score or rank to determine the order of these pages displayed on its search engine results page.

Depending on the nature of the query, these search algorithms look at many factors to fuel ranking and prioritize the search results. Some of the factors include fresh content, page relevance, backlinks, website speed, HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, domain age, authority, location, content length, the usability of pages, keywords volume, and social signals. For example, in queries about current news topics, the freshness of the content plays a more prominent role than other factors.

Google has almost 200 ranking factors, and every year they keep changing or adding more to the list. It is not possible to focus on every single Google ranking factor, but the fundamental factors always remain the same and cannot be ignored. If you want to rank higher, focus only on those factors that will make a significant difference to your website. As of 2019, backlinks with quality and relevant content remain among the most important Google ranking factors.

Importance of relevance in search results ranking

Ranking higher in Google search engine can make business. So how does it work? High ranking content refers to value-added content relevant to its respective subject that you are looking for. When a user searches for a query, Google scans its index and checks for the relevant content to instantly display the most updated and relevant web pages.

For example, when you search for “cakes”, algorithms assess if a page contains relevant content about the keyword “cakes”, like pictures, videos, or recipes. If those keywords appear on the page, the headings, or the text’s body, the information is more likely to be relevant.

So, Google gauges the quality and relevance of the content for displaying more relevant results for the search queries and distinguishes it from other search engines.

Importance of speed in search results ranking

Importance of speed in search results ranking

How can you expect a good user experience if your website loads slow? Studies show that delay in the average loading speed can impact the users and thus leaving the website after about three seconds. This provides a bad user experience, and Google doesn’t like ranking these websites. Since 2018, page speed is a direct ranking factor, especially on mobiles where visitors are more likely to bounce from a site that takes too long to load.

Google also recommends using the newly updated PageSpeed report and other tools like LightHouse to measure the site speed and make necessary improvements for a better user experience. Therefore, page speed is considered one of the essential factors in Google’s ranking algorithm.

Final thoughts

It is a fact that both relevance and speed make a priority, playing a significant role in increasing website ranking, which improves business and helps keep up with competitors. Also, paving the way for fast loading websites with quality content provides a better user experience.

To watch the latest Google SEO Office Hours, please check out the video below:

Does disavowing links have an impact on website traffic or SEO rankings?

Does disavowing links have an impact on website traffic or SEO rankings?

Disavowing a backlink means simply discarding malicious links pointing to the website. It implies requesting search engines like Google to ignore that particular backlink while determining the website’s SERP rankings.

A backlink is an inbound link directing you to a different website, also considered as a significant ranking factor for websites by search engines like Google. Thus, good quality backlinks play a crucial role in increasing the website ranking position and assist the website to rank higher in SERPs. In contrast, bad backlinks are unnatural, spammy links that will direct to bad sites and ruin the website’s rankings.

It is a fact that the more backlinks on a page, the more traffic it gets. But, if these links are unnatural or toxic, they can do more harm than good as Google will consider your site as less trustworthy. If so, disavowing these links could help your site remove this distrust, and you could see improved rankings.

So, what kind of links should be disavowed? There are certain metrics to be taken into consideration before disavowing any backlinks.

What kind of links should be disavowed?

-Trace spammy, low-quality or inappropriate links pointing to your site that you didn’t want to associate with and remove the links without any hesitation.

– Links from disreputable sources that could harm the Domain Authority (DA) and Trust Flow (TF) of your website can be disavowed.

– Review if the links to your site would be of value, like would the website get a large enough audience. You can do so using tools like SEMrush, which shows the overall site’s health.

Google’s John Mueller asks to keep an eye on a few things while disavowing links. First, a link that looks bad may still help your site, and disavowing these links might impact the rankings.
For example, obsolete links were once related to your site and now become outdated. But, the value of the links remains the same as they are from trusted sources even though linked to outdated content.

Another example is some links may not directly relate to the content on your site. This doesn’t mean it’s a bad link until you are confident that the links are causing issues for your site. It should not be disavowed if it’s from a trusted source, as they also impact the SEO rankings.

John Mueller also says that the disavow tools shouldn’t be used indiscriminately. Initially, before using the disavow tool, try removing backlinks manually by Google Webmaster tools. They provide a list of all the links pointing to the website. Analyze the links, including their URLs and the anchor text, prioritizing which links should be removed. Then send a request to the link owner to remove or disavow the link.

Another way is to assess your backlinks profile using Google Search Console and other tools such as Majestic, Moz, SEMrush and Ahrefs. Then, add the links into a plain text file and upload them to the disavow tool.

The disavowing process doesn’t happen immediately. The Google bots take almost 48 hours to notice that a new disavow file has been uploaded against that domain. Later, it takes weeks or even months to recrawl all the URLs and update them.

Final thoughts

Disavowing links play a crucial role in impacting your website traffic and SEO ranking for better or worse. Hence, before disavowing links, it is essential to scrutinize each link to identify whether it’s bringing down or causing harm to your site rather than blindly removing the bad links.

To watch the latest Google SEO Office Hours, please check out the video below:

How to place keywords on a Website content or Article?

How to place keywords on a Website content or Article?

Keywords, also called search queries, are words or phrases that users enter into search engines to search their topics. Too little or too much usage of keywords is incorrect. However, you need the appropriate quantity when it comes to SEO to drive traffic to your webpage.

Placing keywords correctly while designing the website or writing content is incredibly important because they are the jumping-off points when optimizing the search results that give the content a better chance of being visible and high ranking on the search engine results page. Although they play a crucial role in content designing, don’t overload them in every available spot.

How to use keywords in the content correctly? What is the right place to put the keywords in the content that will help in improving the webpage’s discoverability? So, here are certain best practices for adding keywords into your content writing to make your SEO more worthwhile.

1. Title

The web page’s page title is a good starting point that describes precisely what the web page is about. It’s the first thing that shows up on the search results for Google or other search engines and, by clicking, will take the user directly to the web page. In that way, Google records it at first glance while indexing or ranking the page. So, make sure that the title tag consists of the most important keywords of the page.

2. Meta description

The meta description is a (20-25 word) summary of what the webpage is all about. It shows up underneath the page title and link when the user searches for a keyword phrase on search engines. So, incorporate one or two important keywords right up front in the description for getting clicks on your webpage. When using SEO keywords in the meta description, be sure to prioritize a helpful keyword at least once or twice.

3. Content

The content is where we get an overall picture of the article. It is believed that Google scrutinizes the first 200 words of the webpage or blog since it is where usually the introduction is discussed. Since users continue reading the article only if the introduction is good, it stands to be a ranking factor. Therefore, it is important to put your primary keywords within the first sentence or paragraph and use at least one secondary keyword in the first 200 words.

While the best bet is to incorporate targeted keyword phrases into the content as often as possible, keyword density is also a big consideration as repeating keywords often make the content horrible to read. Similarly, it would be a good practice to include the primary and secondary keyword again in the last or second to last paragraph.

4. Headings

The headings and subheadings are used to break up the content and emphasize what comes in the content below. Google considers the HTML tags used to identify headings as ranking signals to know what’s most important in the web page. Therefore, adding concise and relevant keyphrases in headings will help Google rank the website better and ensure that it will not look redundant.

5. Alt tags

Did you ever notice a broken image icon displayed when the internet is slow and has some text next to it? An alt text, also known as alt tags, describes an image on the page if the file is not loaded. Adding keyphrases in the alt text will help incorporate additional text and improve search engine ranking.

Conclusion

When using keywords for SEO, let the content be informative, and the keywords flow naturally in a contextual way. Don’t overload with too much keyword repetition or keyword stuffing, which search engines dislike and may not rank the article, making it hard to find in SERPs.

To watch the latest Google SEO Office Hours, please check out the video below:

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