The third lesson is about search engine optimization (SEO).

Topic Contents Toggle Peace be upon you Improving the structure of URLs Using words in URLs Creating a simple directory structure Providing a single copy of the URL to access a document Making your site easier to navigate Peace be upon you Today we will continue the course on search engine optimization and today we will talk about improving the structure of sites We start with: Improving the structure of URLs Easy-to-understand URLs convey content information easily Creating descriptive categories and file names for documents on your website not only helps you organize your site better but also leads to better crawling of your documents by search engines. It also creates more accessible and “compatible” URLs for anyone who wants to link to your content. Visitors are deterred by URLs that are too long and vague with only a few recognizable words.

URLs such as (1) may be confusing and incompatible. Users will have difficulty remembering the URL or creating a link to it. Also, users may think that part of the URL is unnecessary, especially if the URL shows unrecognizable parameters.

They may skip part of the address, causing the link to break. Some users may link to your page using that page's URL as the anchor text. If your URL contains related words, it provides users and search engines with more information about the page than an oddly named identifier or parameter (2).

google seo URLs are displayed in search results Finally, remember that the URL of a document is displayed as part of the search result in Google, below the title and excerpt of the document. As with the title and snippet, words in the URL appear in the search result in bold if they appear in the user's search query (3). Shown to the left is another example showing the URL on our domain for a page containing an article about the rarest football statistics.

Words in a URL may attract a search user more than an ID number such as / http://www.example.com/ar/article/2012 Google is useful for crawling all kinds of URL combinations, even if they are very complex, but taking the time to make your URLs as simple as possible for both users and search engines can be beneficial. Some webmasters try to accomplish this by rewriting dynamic URLs to static URLs; While Google is skilled at this, we would like to point out that this is an advanced procedure and if done incorrectly, can cause problems crawling your site. To learn more about good URL structure, we recommend checking out this Webmaster Help Center page about creating Google-compliant URLs. Terms: crawling The exploration of sites by search engine software (bots) in order to index their content.

Parameter Data provided in the URL to determine the behavior of the site. Identifier (Session ID) Data provided in order to identify and/or manage the behavior of the user who is currently accessing system or network communications. Redirect 301 HTTP status code (see page 12).

Forces the site visitor to automatically navigate to a specific URL. Subdomain The type of scope used to define a category that is smaller than the regular scope (see page 6).

Root Directory A directory at the top of the site's tree structure.

Sometimes called the “root.” Use of words in google seo URLs URLs that contain phrases relevant to your site's content and structure attract visitors to browse it. Visitors remember titles better and may be more willing to link to them.

Avoid the following: Using long URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs Choosing generic page names like page1.html Using excessive keywords like Football Stats-Football Stats-Football Stats.htm Create a simple directory structure Use a directory structure that organizes your content well and makes it easy for visitors to know where they are on your site. Try using the directory structure to indicate what type of content was found at this URL. Avoid the following: Providing deep nesting of subdirectories such as …/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/page.html Using directory names that have nothing to do with the content within them Providing a single copy of a URL to access a document To prevent users from linking to one copy of a URL and others from linking to a different copy (this may discredit that content among URLs), you can focus on using a single URL and referring to it in the structure and internal links of your pages.

If you find people accessing the same content through multiple URLs, setting a 301 redirect from unpreferred URLs to the dominant URL is a good solution to this. You can also use a canonical URL or use the “rel=”canonical link element if you cannot redirect. Avoid: Allowing pages from subdomains and the root directory to access the same content – e.g.

“domain.com/page.htm” and “sub.domain.com/page.htm” Extra capitalization in URLs – many users expect and remember URLs better in lowercase. Make your site easier to navigate Navigation is very important to search engines Website navigation is important in terms of helping visitors find the content they want quickly. It can also help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important.

Although Google search results are provided at the page level, Google also likes to know what role the page plays in the bigger picture of the site. Detailed navigation planning based on your home page All sites have a home page or “root” page, which is usually the most visited site on the site and where many visitors begin navigation. Unless your site only has a few pages, you should think about how to move from the general page (the root page) to a page with more specific content.

Do you have enough pages about a specific topic area that it makes sense to create a page describing these related pages (eg a root page -< قائمة مواضيع ذات صلة -< موضوع معين)؟ هل لديك مئات من المنتجات المختلفة التي تحتاج إلى تصنيف ضمن صفحات فئات وصفحات فئات فرعية متعددة؟ ضمان المزيد من الراحة للمستخدمين باستخدام “قوائم مسار التنقل” مسار التنقل هو صف من الروابط الداخلية أعلى أو أسفل الصفحة والذي يسمح للزوار بالعودة بسرعة إلى قسم سابق أو صفحة جذر (1).

Many breadcrumbs display the home page (usually the root page) as the first rightmost link and have more specific sections to the left. Terminology: (“Page not found” error) 404 HTTP status code (see page 12). It means that the server could not find the web page requested by the browser.

XML Sitemap A list of pages on a particular website. By creating and submitting this list, you can tell Google about all the pages on your site, including any URLs that might not be caught by Google's regular crawling process. Allow the ability to remove part of a UR Think about what happens when a user removes part of your URL – some users may navigate your site in strange ways, and you should expect this. For example, instead of using breadcrumb links on a page, a user might remove part of the URL in hopes of finding more general content.

He might go to http://www.example.com/ar/afc-news/2012/all-upcoming-matches.htm but enter /http://www.example.com/ar/afc-news/2012 into the browser address bar, thinking this will display all the news from 2012 (2). Is your site set up to serve content in this situation or will it show the user a 404 page (“Page could not be found” error)? What about moving the directory level up to http://www.example.com/ar/afc-news/? Setting up two sitemaps: one for users, one for search engines.  

(lowercase) A simple page on a website that displays the site's structure, usually consisting of a hierarchical list of pages on your site. Visitors can visit this page if they are having problems finding pages on your site. While search engines also visit this page, to get good crawl coverage of the pages on your site, their primary target is the people visiting.

An XML Sitemap (uppercase) file that you can submit through Google Webmaster Tools makes it easier for Google to discover the pages on your site. Using a Sitemap is also one way (although not guaranteed) to let Google know which version of the URL you prefer as canonical (for example, http://example.com/ar/ or http://www.example.com/ar/) Google has helped create the open source Sitemap Builder script to help you create a Sitemap for your site. To learn more about Sitemaps, the Webmaster Help Center provides a helpful guide to Sitemaps

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