I’m working on a project with the Wolf and we’re trying to decide just exactly how to get our URL structures to fit all the data. E-commerce can be a b****…brat like that. The reason:
We try to keep all the pages in the .com/here/or-here/ level so as to tell the search engines that the pages are important.
The Wolf came up with an idea:
What if I could pass some of the value through the URL suffix?
In this case, he’s thinking .com/category/post.event or…for short… .evt or something.
It got us to a’thinkin’…
…because normally I went with .html or just the / for stuff. .html because that’s how I was trained. / because it has less characters but shows finality.
Some companies pass their corporate initials through the URL suffix, but what we were trying to determine, once and for all, was whether or not there was a penalty or benefit for your URL suffix. So I started at the first place I always start: MattCutts.com/blog/.
According to MattCutts.com/blog – If We Read It Right
Matt Cutt’s advice is as follows:
- Don’t end URLs in .exe or .dll – a link that ends in .exe is perceived to be an executable file. If it ends in .dll, the browser will perceive it to be a windows system file and try to download it (thanks, Wolf). The Wolf also pointed out that local browsers won’t be able to see a .dll file.
- Avoid using “.0” if at all possible – URLs that end in .0 are typically known for being spam links. Cutts says that Google does now search those links, but follow up research pointed out that even the best-intended sites could end up in penalty.
- Otherwise, it doesn’t matter too much, but check first – Cutts says to do a filetype:[add-extension-here] search to see if file types you want to use show up in Google. If they do, your chances of successful indexing with these terms increase. If not, well, good luck.
With That in Mind
We did the filetype:ourextension searches and discovered that they exist in the Google index. We’ll probably use them if we can’t come up with a better way to parse the values. Otherwise, we’ll end them with /.
Other Resources Consulted
- Finish Joomla on URL Suffixes – Very insightful. It also links to a w3.org article that pointed out the organization’s view on extensions.
- SEOMoz’s article on their .0 issue – they tell one story, Cutts tells another. When in doubt, I believe Cutts – not that anyone is lying.