Rand Fishkin's presentation at SMX East NYC 2009

1. URL Best Practices
Based on Correlation Data
Rand Fishkin | SMX East NYC 2009

2. Correlation Data Set
 10,000 Queries
 Google.com United States Only
 Range of Head, Middle & Tail Queries
 1-6 Word Queries
 Excludes Queries w/ Fewer than 25 Results
 Collected Oct. 1-3, 2009

3. Correlation IS NOT Causation
If T = Temperate in Manhattan and I = # of ice cream
vendors out, then correlation coefficient T:I is quite
positive. Does this prove that ice cream vendors cause
it to be hot?

4. Are Shorter URLs Better?

5. As URL Length Rises, Ranking Decreases
In Close Proportion

6. What About
Short Domain Names?

7. Domain Name Length Appears to Barely
Matter for Rankings
(but >11 characters may be unwise)

8. Are Query Parameters
Harmful?

9. URLs with Query Parameters are
Less Likely to Appear in Top Results

10. Do Keywords in the
Root Domain Name Help?

11. Root Domain Names that Include
Keyword Matches are Dramatically More
Likely to Appear in Top Results

12. Do Keywords in a Site's
Subdomain Help?

13. Not as much as Root Domains, but there
Appears to be Some Value

14. Do Keywords in the URL Path
Make for Better Rankings?

15. They make Dramatically Less Difference
than Root or Subdomain

16. Slightly More Sophisticated Data from
this Spring Suggested that KW Usage in
Path has a Somewhat Positive Correlation

17. Are Keywords in the
Filename Valuable?

18. Like Path, Not as Valuable/Correlated

19. How About Keywords in
Query String?

20. Also Not as Positively Correlated

21. WWW vs. Non-WWW

22. WWW Domains Appear More Often in
Top Results

23. Is HTTP Better Than HTTPs?

24. HTTP Appears Much More Frequently
in Top Results, But Doesn't Seem to have
much Correlation with Ranking

25. Are Fewer Folders Better?

26. Fewer Folders in URLs have High
Correlation with Better Ranking

27. Ranking URL Structures
Based on Correlation Data

28. Better
http://www.domain.com/keyword
https://domain.com/keyword
http://www.domain.com/a/123/keyword
http://www.domain.com/a
http://www.domain.com/a?id=keyword
http://www.domain.com/a/1?id=xy&pl=keyword
https://domain.com/a/b/c/d?id=xy&pl=2&tv=7
Worse

29. Shameless Plug:
www.seomoz.org/labs has awesome stuff
Rand Online:
Twitter: @randfish
Email: rand@seomoz.org
Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog