Importance of URL

[jayer]

I was screwing around with one of the free SEO tools posted, and I got an analysis of the page I submitted. What is more important for a URL? The length or having keywords in it?

[dekree81]

To me ... length should have more weight in analysis compared to keywords.

[CapitalistFool]

For SEO purposes, the keywords are probably the most important. However, if you are trying to build a world-class site, the length, uniqueness, and rememberability (made this word up) are most important.

[HarveyJ]

For SEO purpose, length has nothing to do with it.
A keyword loaded, two or three word long, non-hyphenated domai nis best suited, particularly when the Title tag matches the domain name correctly.

[latinahottie]

length has nothing to do with it but as with anything else, you want to keep it short and sweet and bite-sized for the benefit of your viewers. nothing beats a domain name that is brandable (if such a word exist) and easy to remember.

if you're just starting out and you like to do it american style (as in: do it quick - ask questions later ala operation shock and awe) then a keyword domain name plus matching keywords will definitely do you good but in the long run you'll definitely benefit a lot more with a "short and sweet" domain name as long as you CAN and you KNOW how to market it. Case in point? godaddy.com - their name got nothing to do with the products and services that they offer but just mention the name and anyone here (or anyone who watches football) will immediately recognize the brand and connections.

[mauco]

Try and strike a balance between the length, your brand name and keywords in your URL.

[jayer]

So I am doing an e-commerce site with a database. Does anyone know how to use the .htaccess file and mod rewrite to read the title of a product from the database and make it the URL.

I know simple mod rewrite stuff, but nothing past that.

For example,

(Pulled from SQL Database)
Compaq Presario R4000 Laptop

http://www.example.com/Compaq-Presario-R4000-Laptop.htm

I would have to assume that is possible without having a mod rewrite line for every single product. Any ideas?

[JLeezer]

So I am doing an e-commerce site with a database. Does anyone know how to use the .htaccess file and mod rewrite to read the title of a product from the database and make it the URL.

I know simple mod rewrite stuff, but nothing past that.

For example,

(Pulled from SQL Database)
Compaq Presario R4000 Laptop

http://www.example.com/Compaq-Presario-R4000-Laptop.htm

I would have to assume that is possible without having a mod rewrite line for every single product. Any ideas?

That was probably the most awkward transition from one topic to another.

Anyway, I don't believe that you are looking for anything .htaccess related. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding you, you are looking to pull data from a database and have pages served based around the data, correct?

[jayer]

Well its my thread so the transition is ultimately getting to what I want to get out of the questions...

Maybe its not an .htaccess issue. Right now I use a SQL database.

I have used .htaccess to make
Pride Pioneers - Be Proud! - NCAA, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL & NASCAR Products
into
Ohio State Buckeyes Stained Glass Accent Lamp - Pride Pioneers

So in my database I have three separate cells... "Ohio State", "Buckeyes" and "Stained Glass Accent Lamp"...

Now I would think I could use .htaccess to make
Pride Pioneers - Be Proud! - NCAA, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL & NASCAR Products
into
http://www.pridepioneers.com/Ohio-St...ccent-Lamp.htm

Follow me now?

[JLeezer]

I do follow you, but I know there are a lot of web apps that will be much easier to manage down the road. I would suggest a CMS such as Drupal or Joomla with a few modules/extensions for shopping cart. They allow the naming conventions you are looking for in a reliable, consistent, and--most importantly--tested suite.

Oh, btw, didn't mean to offend you with my comment on most awkward transition between topics, but you do still win the award for that. My point was kind of that you might get more helpful replies if you start a thread that is on topic. You'll attract people with the answers you need that might not be attracted to a post about the importance of URLs.

Anyway, use something that was written for managing a store of that size. It will work better in the long run.

[justy540]

I'm not a php developer ( I do .NET) but I've done a bit of URL rewriting on both platforms and I think you can use regular expressions in you .htAccess file. either way what I would be googling is Url Rewriting, Pretty URLs, RegEx, Regular Expressions, and htaccess.

Good luck

[jayer]

Thanks for advice. I was using a shopping cart software for 6 months, but I want to avoid the $60 per month until I get everything up and running to the point that it pays for itself.

[SerialEntrepreneurs.]

When it comes to domain names - the shorter the better....but you do want it to contain keywords....without a doubt that helps gets organic rankings...as an example, we launched FoodCouponsDirect.com which is in Top 5 of google for a search on food coupons....

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Hope this helps....good luck!

[flnazrael]

@jayer - Check out Magento, it's free and has excellent baked in SEF URLs for LAMP environments. Zen Cart is another free cart that has some SEF plugins, but I haven't fooled around with ZC in a while...

Also, if you are going for an exact match, one word exact matches get more weight than two word, two word get more weight than three, etc. I think the exact match bonus (Google & MSN) disappears around 4 words or so. And the dash definitely kills the bonus, as well as making your domain look spammy in general.

There's a lot of bad advice floating around based on people's perception that a hyphenated domain name gets a bonus, when it fact it just does better than something without the keywords, simply because most of the links to it will include the keywords in the anchor text. Has nothing to do with a domain "bonus".


@latina - Dear god, it was so nice to hear someone point out that your domain should be brandable in an SEO discussion... most people don't realize that bestchicagodivorcelawyer.com may be keyword rich, but your SERP CTR is going to be pathetic because your site looks like spam to a searcher. Give me good a good CTR and a domain name I'm not ashamed to print on a business card any day...

[Jenie0109]

When it comes to domain names - the shorter the better....but you do want it to contain keywords....without a doubt that helps gets organic rankings...as an example,

That is so true. Keep this in mind to be on top