Questioning the Effectiveness of Keywords in URLs

By Deane Barker • • 4 min read •
AI Summary

This post examines the impact of using keywords in URLs on SEO and website ranking. The author argues that while keywords can be beneficial, their influence may be overstated, and other factors like content quality and user experience are more important for effective optimization.

There’s an accepted theory in SEO: put keywords in your URLs. This is so accepted, that no one questions it and content management systems routinely have modules, extensions, and allowances for users to create keyword-rich URLs.

But, does this work? Does anyone know for sure? I’ve been casually looking for a while for resources which prove or disprove the effectiveness of this theory, but I haven’t found much. Does this emperor have any clothes?

Years ago, I read Shari Thurow’s book “Search Engine Visibility” and she said this:

Simply placing keywords in a domain name and/or filename is not going to make or break top search engine visibility. […] Keywords in the domains names and filenames are not as important as people are led to believe. […] Keywords in a domain name give minuscule boost when all other factors (text, link, and popularity component) are equal.

I agree with this – I feel like the emphasis on this SEO technique is way, way over-rated. There are so many other factors people should worry about before they start aliasing pages. Put another way, keywords in URLs might be a small part of a over-arching SEO strategy, but they’re not worth much by themselves.

(Now, don’t confuse this with an indictment of clean URLs. I like URL cleanliness, which we’ve talked about quite a bit around here. I think clean, short URLs have a distinct usability benefit. Hence, the URLs on this site.)

I had someone come to me earlier this year in a big hurry to alias all their URLs to help their search engine positioning. I took a look through their site and noticed this:

  1. No unique titles

  2. No meta

  3. Horrific HTML

  4. No keywords in header tags

  5. etc.

I explained to them that they had much bigger SEO problems than keywords in their URLs, but they paid me all the same to allow them to alias all their pages. I have no idea if it helped them or not, but I doubt it.

Getting all uptight about URLs in most cases is like me saying, “I want to win the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding championship…so I need to go get a tan right now.” Sure, having a good tan is a small part of being a competitive bodybuilder, but there are probably quite a few other things I should focus on first. Like my abs.

As such, I feel that keywords in your URLs should be #7 or #8 on a 10-point list of the top SEO techniques, not the #1 or #2 spot that people keep putting it in. Again, I’m looking for any solid research on the effectiveness of this technique. If you know of anything, comments are open.

(Irony: mouseover that Amazon link above and check out the URL…)

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