Why Use Search Engine Friendly SEF URL's

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Created on Wednesday, 15 July 2009 10:31

Operating a successful web site demands smart search engine practices for Google and a like, and that includes the the URLs of your web pages. A friendly web site means more hits, which equals more viusitors able to find you and added success to your business.

The scenario...

Google didn't used to store pages that looked like the following:

http://www.domain.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=38&catid=14&id=41&view=article

These days a lot of website have some sort of database behind it and the pages are created dynamically - i.e. like a CMS (Content Management System) - Joomla for example.

These days Google does store these types of URL...
But looking at the above what page does this URL refer to?
Do you know?
Does Google know?
Does anyone know?

The answer is that no one's got a clue - full stop.

Google refers to something called SEF or Search Engine Friendly URLS. So what does this mean?

What do the following URL's tell us?

http://www.fastnetwebdesign.co.uk/portfolio.php
This is the portfolio page...

http://www.fastnetwebdesign.co.uk/cms-consultancy.php
This is the cms consultancy page...

http://www.fastnetwebdesign.co.uk/web-design-in-brighton-and-joomla-cms-specialists.php
This is the page that says we are web design and joomla cms specialists in Brighton...

Make sense?

Well if it does make sense, it will also make sense to the search engines like Google!

Look at the page you are viewing... this page. Look at the URL - does it say something to you & describe the page contents?

SEF (or Search Engine Friendly) URL's are used to provide more relevant-looking links to web pages. The benefits of a SEF URL's are:

• Making website URLs more descriptive to improve user-friendliness and search engine optimisation
• Preventing undesired "inline linking"
• Not exposing the inner workings of a web site's address to visitors
• The URLs of pages on the web site can be kept even if the underlying technology used to serve them is changed, thus become a security risk to your website
• Unfriendly URL's are difficult for a user to type
• Unfriendly URL's do not promote usability
• Unfriendly URL's don't help with maintainability

Fastnet Web Design promotes and insist's on Search Engine Friendly URL's when designing websites with our CMS (Content Management System) Joomla. Please contact us for further information or questions...