On-Page Optimization

Thanks Will

I may test it first with the short URL version.

For say guitar lessons, I think this would fit your model:

guitarlessons.com/guitar-lesson-1.php

And the short version for test purposes would be:
guitarlessons.com/1.php

And a dash-removed version is:
guitarlessons.com/guitarlesson1.php

For related keywords:
guitarlessons.com/acoustic-guitar-lesson-1.php
or
guitarlessons.com/acoustic-guitar-1.php

or
guitarlessons.com/ac1.php

For a quick check on how Google sees the URLs, I look at what it highlights in the search results.

For plurals, there doesn't seem to be a difference.

Also, I am thinking that the dot is a delimiter where what is after the dot such as PHP or HTML is not so important. Maybe? Also, if we have a slash or no slash at the end of a URL.

I try and put myself in the shoes of a search engine programmer where I would filter out the noise from a URL to leave the keywords, order of the keywords and domain name for analysis.

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terapak, I would try: domain.com/article-title/2010 to move the keyword to the left if you must include the year field.

If there is an issue with duplicate post name text, then the programmers should append a number to the URL I think. When a post is published, the script scans the existing file names and appends a unique number if there is a duplicate entry.

My new programmers for the new sites were able to solve it, so no idea why the others had problem with it. Now this specific site (actually 7 sites have the same structure), is over 6 months old, very established a lots of traffic, both SE and natural, so I wouldn't touch the old structure, otherwise I would lose more than I gain I guess.

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Originally Posted by tetrapak

Will, how much damage does an additional directory, let's say the year between the domain and the title of the URL?

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Years ago that was seriously bad, but now I don't think it matters at all.

I really need to do more testing. :o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andy101

For a quick check on how Google sees the URLs, I look at what it highlights in the search results.

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I think it's important to remember that those are two different groups of programmers working on different code bases with different requirements.

The output from the highlighting group provides no trustworthy insight into the inner workings of the ranking group.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andy101

Also, I am thinking that the dot is a delimiter where what is after the dot such as PHP or HTML is not so important. Maybe? Also, if we have a slash or no slash at the end of a URL.

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I believe that file extension is irrelevant.

The slash is a very odd situation... I need to test, but I worry that a terminating slash could have very negative consequences.

Quote:

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The slash is a very odd situation... I need to test, but I worry that a terminating slash could have very negative consequences.

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Could you possibly go in depth about this a little? I have one site that all my links end with a / its sitesonmyip should I be rethinking how they end? I had it done this way as I thought it looked cleaner wasnt thinking about seo at the time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr.Bill

Could you possibly go in depth about this a little? I have one site that all my links end with a / its sitesonmyip should I be rethinking how they end? I had it done this way as I thought it looked cleaner wasnt thinking about seo at the time.

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Last I tested, Google was ignoring keywords in the "directory" part of URL's.

If Google mistakes everything after the domain and before the final slash as the "directory" part of the URL, that could lead to you losing any bonuses that would normally be given to the "filename" part of the URL.

With a slash at the end of a URL, it implies that there is a new directory of files with an index page. So it may result in the crawler hammering away at that URL waiting for new pages to appear.

I'm just speculating.

The search engine engineers must be well aware of .htaccess and how we like to re-write URLS so I hope that they factored this in by now to the search engine algorithm.

How do you test these things Will? I guess you have a site set up just for testing?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andy101

With a slash at the end of a URL, it implies that there is a new directory of files with an index page. So it may result in the crawler hammering away at that URL waiting for new pages to appear.

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This was updated just a few days ago:
To slash or not to slash

Image Ranking

The more images I check how they rank for a keyword in Google Images, the more I realize that what counts the most is the Alt tag, the filename & keywords surrounding the images. I don't seem to find any relevance between directory structure though.

Let's see a few examples:

No 1. in Google Images for "apple":
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/consuminginterests/blog/apple-logo1.jpg

- keyword in the filename
- keyword in Alt (not even a proper one, just automated: "apple-logo1.jpg")
- h3 tag on "Apple Will Price-Match Other Authorized Dealers for Black Friday"

Clearly, the directory structure looks crap, however Google Images couldn't care less. Next one:

No 1. in Google Images for "beer":
http://blog.newsok.com/thepetshow/files/2009/09/beer.jpg

- exact match for keyword in filename
- exact match for keyword in Alt
- no header tag for title
- crappy directory structure

No 1. in Google Images for "girl":
http://www.popularpages.net/pics/college-girl_2_2392_si.jpg (NSFW!!!)

- keyword in the filename
- keyword in the Alt: "College Girl"
- no header tag for title
- good directory structure

No 1. in Google Images for "business":
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/college_guide/image/business-school.jpg

- keyword in filename
- keyword in Alt: automated - "business-school.jpg"
- no header tag for title
- crappy directory structure with underscores

I've been long fascinated by how the rankings work in image search engines, especially now that I have websites that contain thousands of images. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the two most important things I see to rank for a specific keyword is to have it in the filename and in the Alt. I don't see that Google cares about directory structure at all. What do you think?

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Originally Posted by cschristo9

thank for sharing !! can anyone tell me how to build a site map

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if wordpress u can use sitemap generator plugin, other u can try this http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Does anyone have experience, other opinion?