The Power of Search Engine Friendly URLs

I recently invested quite some time into generating search engine friendly URLs for several of my websites to increase my ranking and to have more pages indexed. I can highly recommend to look into this if your own website does not have se-friendly URLs. Especially Google (the most important search engine nowadays) can be very picky in regards to URLs that are not se-friendly.

Example (the 2 URLs below bring you to exactly the same page):

http://www.beefkabobs.com/ShowCategory.php?CategoryID=13 -> this URL is not se-friendly and search engines will eventually ignore any page behind it or rank it much lower in search results. Visitors will have difficulties to remember this URL. These kind of URLs often come from dynamic database driven websites. Each page is dynamically created when requested. Look at the forums URL this moment, too. It is dynamically created and not very friendly to search engines or the visitor. You get the idea.

http://www.beefkabobs.com/kabob-recipe-category-13.html -> this URL is se-friendly and search engines will spider the page behind it easily. It is keyword enriched to increase search engine ranking. Overall - this URL is easy to be spidered and easy to remember by a visitor.

For one of my own sites I was able to increase the number of pages indexed from 36 to over 150 pages - just by making the URLs search engine friendly. The additional pages were ignored by the search engines because they could not read the URLs properly. The domain used in my example went from 20 pages to 80 within 2 weeks and should go to over 120 pages indexed (by Google) with the next Google update.

How do you make your URLs search engine friendly?

Your web host/web server needs to support the Apache Web Server module "mod_rewrite". This module allows to rewrite URLs a certain way. By using a ".htaccess" file you can give the web server the necessary commands to work with se-friendly URLs.

How does this now really works?

In general - you are faking the nice clean looking URLs and fool search engines and visitors to believe that the URLs of your website are se-friendly.

SE-friendly URLs work in 2 steps. 1) Your site needs to display the se-friendly URLs. 2) mod_rewrite and htaccess 'translate' the se-friendly URL and redirect the traffic to the ugly looking se-unfriendly URL in the background (invisible to anyone). You will need to setup the htaccess file with the command how you would like the URL to look like and what does it translate to (a certain ugly looking dynamic URL).

The code that generates the URLs dynamically needs to be adjusted to match the rules from your .htaccess file. You upload the code changes and the htaccess and off you go.

Can every website be modified?

Most websites with dynamic URLs can be modified if the server environment meets the requirements. Each website needs to be looked at separately to get the best results.

The learning curve on creating se-friendly URLs can be quite challenging. Spend the time and resources on creating se-friendly URLs. The results can be overwhelming.

About The Author

Christoph Puetz is a successful small business owner (Net Services USA LLC) and international author.

The website used as an example can be found at http://www.beefkabobs.com. A second example can be found at http://www.vitaminsinstock.com

This article can be reprinted as long as the author information and resource box stays intact. All URLs/Links must be clickable and active.

In The News:

pen paper and inkwell


cat break through


Searching The Internet Without Search Engines

The World Wide Web contains more than ten million websites... Read More

Five Ways To Win The Favor Of Search Engines

You've got a cool new website with all the works:... Read More

SEO - Are You Making The Search Engines Mad?

If you've been involved in SEO (search engine optimization) for... Read More

Linking for Traffic not Positioning!

With more and more experts and search engine enthusiastsclaiming the... Read More

Linking Strategies to Skyrocket to the Top of Google

If you don't know already, one of the key success... Read More

Link Popularity Explained and How To Build Links

Link popularity is the single most influential factor for determining... Read More

What Did We Learn from the Great Search Engine Experiment!

Last Week I did a Search engine Experiment. I wanted... Read More

How to Prevent Duplicate Content with Effective Use of the Robots.txt and Robots Meta Tag

Duplicate content is one of the problems that we regularly... Read More

Page Rank - A Quick Overview for Beginners

Page Rank (PR) is a specific value for a website... Read More

How To Syndicate Your Content

Note: In order to preserve the proper format for the... Read More

An Ethical Alternative to Doorway Pages

Definition: A doorway page is content created specifically for the... Read More

Future of SEO - Making Money Online from Your Home and Building Homes from Making Money Online

Everyone seems to want the benefits from working at home:... Read More

How To Get Listed In Google For Free

Google does not accept payment for inclusion in their main... Read More

The Myth of Rankings - Beyond Search Engine Optimization

What follows is a condensed version of a conversation that... Read More

Search Engine FAQ

Why shouldn't I use a submission service that submits my... Read More

Blogging, Spamming, and Blog Spam

Email marketing once proved to be immensely effective, but the... Read More

Feed Those Hungry WIIFM Monsters, Get Them To Multiply

Everyone packs their website with keywords in order to feed... Read More

The Simple Formula To Search Engines

Search engines are one of the best tools to bring... Read More

Search Engine Tips & Techniques

As you are building your site or getting your site... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Keyword Analysis (part 3/10)

If you imagine that building an optimized site is like... Read More

The 3 Essential Components of a Search Engine Optimization Campaign

Everyday, the Search Engines average 300 MILLION searches. In a... Read More

How To Avoid The 3 Biggest Title Tag Mistakes With Search Engines

Your title tag is the most important 3 to 12... Read More

Is New MSN Search More Precise? Just Ask Google

MSN finally unleashed its new search technology to the world... Read More

10 Ways to Make Sure Your SEO Goes Out of Its Way for You

If they want to have success, companies should do everything... Read More

Importance of Keywords in Anchor Text or Title Text

Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an... Read More

The Search Engine Optimization Secret that Everybody Ignores

Search engine optimization is a very critical task in the... Read More

Search Engines: Tips and Strategies on Getting Listed and Ranking High for Newbies

You've got a website. You've put countless hours into it,... Read More

Website Copy-writing for Higher Sales and Higher Search Engine Ranking

Why, you ask? Mainly, because search engines want to provide... Read More

Google Page Rank Is Dead - Part III

HELP! My PR page rank is grey, call the development... Read More

Determining the Value of Your SEO Service

Every once in a while--and probably more often than we... Read More

Google News - Just another article announcer?

In Google's recent battle towards becoming an international news center,... Read More

How to Make a Title Tag that Search Engines Will Love

Making the following changes to your title tag can help... Read More

Adding City Names At The End Of Your Keywords Can Bring You More Profits

In recent times, I have been closely studying keywords that... Read More