A practical checklist for URL structure

It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. Run through this the next time URL structure comes up.

Technical fixes remove obstacles; content earns the position. Both are needed and they are not interchangeable. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

The checklist

• Short, readable URLs get shared and clicked more
• Changing them later costs you rankings unless you redirect
• Words beat numeric IDs for both people and crawlers
• Someone is named as the owner
• There is a date to review it again

What it costs to ignore

Short, readable URLs get shared and clicked more. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

The short version

Search engines are trying to answer a question, so the pages that answer questions clearly tend to do well. Three things worth confirming about URL structure before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Short, readable URLs get shared and clicked more — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.