CMS Made Simple Forums

What do people think about page alias strings and SEO.

For example, would a alias like

www.somedomainname.com/index.php?page=BMW-Spare-Parts

fair better in SERP's than

www.somedomainname.com/index.php?page=Parts

Do search engines look at keywords in URL strings? Should we spend time worrying about this or concentrate on good page title tags and good content?

I would worry about the alias, but just a bit (enough not to make the alias be something like page001 and page002 and so on) then again this-page-has-information-about-spare-parts probably isnt good either

I usually just enable modrewrite urls and try to keep aliases under 10 characters and something meaninful

hope this helps

Yeah that helps - thanks for the reply.

I am on a windows box so 'friendly' URL's wont work....right? Why are these regarded as friendly? Is it to make the files look like they are in folders from the root? Does this really help SEO?

I was interested in this as I have seen Google put keywords in URL's in bold in SERP's.

Thank you for your feedback anyway, I agree keeping them short seems to make sense.

if you have complex page hierarchy modrewrite urls will make more sense

for example if you have information about different countries you could have something like

http://domain.tld/countries/finland/flag/

and there is information about finlands flag.

if you have something like

http://domain.tld/index.php?page=flag

it isnt as clear.

also rewritten urls usually look better and are easier to remember (first level items are very easy)

but its just my .02cents

tsw wrote: if you have complex page hierarchy modrewrite urls will make more sense

Yes I agree but can this work on a Windows server with IIS?

tsw wrote: but its just my .02cents

- 2 / 100 of a cent? 

IIS doesnt support it

heh, maybe I should sleep more

That is what I thought 

I recommend at least 4 hours per night 

Thank you for your answers