Posts Tagged ‘URLs’

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I’m continuing to work my way through questions submitted during a webinar I gave on Website Architecture. You can check out Parts one, two, three, four, five and six. This post covers questions on URLs, breadcrumb navigation, CMS, Database driven sites, 301 and 302 redirects, navigation, heading tags, broken links and HTML theft.

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• A Googler’s Sage Advice on Absolute vs. Relative URLs
• 3 Best Desktop Backlink Checking Tools
• You know you need SEO when:

There is no better way to create an infinite amount of duplicate content on your site than to force session IDs onto each visitor. Typically, session IDs are used for tracking a single visitor’s navigation path through the site, including the adding or removing products from the shopping cart. They are great for tracking purposes, but really, really bad for search engines and inbound linking.

Ok, first of all, that’s a bad URL shown above, but aside from that, tacked on at the end there is the session ID. Both URLs pull the same page pulled open via a different browsing session. The bad stuff happens if the session IDs also get attached when the search engines come for a visit.

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Search engine spiders can be very forgiving with a lot of duplicate content issues. I’ve found that, given enough time, the engines learn when two websites or web pages are complete duplicates of the other. Once they figure that out then they basically understand that a link to one is a link to the other, etc. One version will ultimately be dropped from the index in favor of the other.

There are two basic problems with this. First, it all takes time. Until the search engines figure out which dupes should be “merged” you’re essentially splitting link flow. Two inbound links, one to each version, produce only have the power than two links both pointing to a single version.

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Last month I posted some of my thoughts and theories on duplicate content where I explained the different types of duplicate content that the search engines find. I wanted to expand a bit on the in-site duplicate content that we often see with various websites. I’ll take these one at a time over the course of the next few days or weeks, depending on how often I post.

www. vs. no www.

Real quick, go to your browser and type in yoursite.com. Does the URL in the browsers address bar change to a) http://yoursite.com or b) http://www.yoursite.com?

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Last week I wrote a post about how poor product categorization can frustrate shoppers and search engines alike. Strictly from a user standpoint, improperly thinking out how each product should be categorized can cause many products from being found by your shoppers. When determining the category or categories of any product, you have to put yourself in the mind of the searcher. How would they look for it?

In much the same way, the domain name(s) you select can also be a preventative measure against someone finding you. We can use The Home Depot as an example once again. My first attempt to get to their site I typed in www.thehomedepot.com. That goes nowhere. The URL to reach them is www.homedepot.com. This is a clear case of “what are they thinking?” The last time I checked (which was today) they bill themselves as THE Home Depot, not just Home Depot. It’s right there in their logo!

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Like a sound site architecture and directory structure, product categorization can play a significant role in how both search engines and users are able to access your products. There are two important things to consider when determining how to categorize your products. 1) Is each product assigned to the most appropriate category or categories? and 2) is multiple categorization creating duplicate content? The first issue frustrates your users and the second the search engines.

Looking for examples of both of these I found exactly what I was looking for on The Home Depot website.

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There are two kinds of duplicate content: content that is duplicated on multiple websites sites and content that is duplicated on multiple pages of a single site. I believe the search engines treat each differently and, of course, there may be different standards applied duplicate content within each of these two main differentiations, depending on the cause and instance.

Please note that I’ve not done any in-depth testing of this issue so everything I’m presenting here are my own theories. But I think as far as untested theories go, it’s pretty solid.

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SEO

• Makeshift Anchor Text… Link Title Attribute vs Image Alt Tags: Which is Better?
• Rewriting URLs: SEO for CMS, E-Commerce, and Dynamic Sites
• Create Forms in Google Docs Spreadsheet
• Optimizing site structures through diverse navigation

Copywriting

• How to Hook (More) Copywriting Prospects
• Just Write: Find the Confidence to Write More
• Juicy Writing: 5 Ways to Glue Readers to the Page
• 3 Tips When Writing Benefits
• Beat Blank Page Syndrome: 10 Tricks to Get Your Writing Started
• Make Your Message Bounce With a Game of Verbal Tennis
• Blogging. An excuse for poor communication?

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SEO

• Rewriting URLs: SEO for CMS, E-Commerce, and Dynamic Sites
• Controlling Search Engine Access with Cookies & Session IDs
• How Long Does it Take to Rank in Google? How Many Hours do I Have to Work Each Day?

Copywriting

• The $12,500 Copywriting Formula
• Essential Writing Tools For The 21st Century Freelance Writer
• How to Write Sexy Content that Satisfies

Social Media

• Six Simple Things You Can do to Enjoy Blogging More
• The Secret to Utilizing All Social Media Sites
• Reputation Management: How to Track Corporate Buzz Online

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