Search Engine URL ReWriting
There are many components to a Search Engine Optimisation campaign. Once all the basics have been applied its time to upgrade your URL’s.
You’ve probably got a great CMS running all your content, but your URL’s have special characters in them and can be very long in length.
Google doesn’t like special characters and you are giving yourself every opportunity to go higher in rankings if you have keywords within your URL.
Eg. http://www.yourcompany.com/index.aspx?page=product_detail&id=55
This doesn’t really mean much to anyone (or your customers when you email them links) only that it might be a product of some kind.
Re-Writing your URL using an ISAPI filter can acheive results like this:
http://www.yourcompany.com/home-entertainment/sony-surround-sound-system.html
Instantly you know its a Sony surround sound system in home entertainment. The link looks quite tidy. Google loves this. The shorter your URL the better, and especially if it has keywords contained in within.
Don’t go crazy in your slug creation, less is more in the world of SEO.
If you are using IIS 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 7.0 on your servers, you should try out Ionic’s ISAPI ReWrite Filter.
RewriteRule ^/go/([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$ /go.cfm?page=$1
MaxMatchCount 50
Here’s a quick sample of how to write a basic ReWrite script.
Your web host can usually help out with what is pre-installed on your server so you can get scripting immediately and write beautiful URLs.
Topics: Search Engine Optimisation |