Using Search Engine Friendly URL

[jj30]

As I am new to website development, is it worth purchasing this module, or is there some free on the market which may be as good ?.

Any tips would be most welcome.

I realise I need to get my proposed site noticed, but don't which is the best way on a tight budget.

Many Thanks

[CB]

If you want people to find your listings via a search engine the SEF mod is a must. Also most likely with all the mods if you have paid listings they will pay for themselves very fast.

Good luck

[Maffo]

Although I have nothing against the Search Engine Friendly URLs, I also dont see what all the fuss is about myself.

Search Engine Friendly URLs were created because some search engines couldnt spider pages containing ? and subsequent database queries.

EG yoursite.com/category.php?type=15&sec=34

This is no longer a problem, as pretty much all Search Engines can process these urls without a problem.

Yes it might help if you can get some keywords generated inside the url but it doesnt make a massive difference and is not vital to having a good search engine results.

There always seems to be a public trend of whats needed for Search Engine Rankings.

It used to be keywords, then it was generic domain names, now its search engine friendly urls.

The key to having a successful website on the search engines, is

A: a good structure with clear and concise page titles, descriptions, link titles, image titles, alt tags etc

B: A successful link campaign with lots of incoming and outgoing links to RELEVANT sites.

C: Lots of good content, in the case of classifieds, ADS!

I have never made a single site with SEF URLS and my sites get great results.

Like I say, im not saying these URLs are a waste of time, but they are not paramount to getting top ranks.

[SkGold]

I am not completely agreed with Maffo. I believe that this module is still very useful. But in SEO field we always agree and disagree with each other.

IMO having SE friendly URL and your keywords in these URLs will help you to get better positions in serps. Especially it is applied to MSN as this SE defiantly parses keywords in URL. I guess Google and Yahoo doing it as well, but there is no prove yet.

When I started using this module one year ago I got much better positions in serps (especially for deep pages) and as result a great ROI.

[jj30]

Thanks for the tips and information.

Sk gold, how do you get revenue off your auto site, I havn't looked at it but at a first glance it says free!.

I am looking at starting a classic car site in the UK.

cHEERS

[Mike-N-Tosh]

I agree with Maffo on this one.

I didn't even submit my site to any Search sites. MSN picked me up first on it's own. So did Google and Yahoo. Although I've never heard of AboutUs.org, they picked us up to and rated our site for SEO at 97%.

I don't use any SEO mods. I do use keywords, meta tags and alt tags.

I'm not dissing the SEO mod, I just don't think that it's all that necessary.

-Mike

[gregbatch]

I'm with Maffo as well. In the old days, dynamic links would break the path in the "eyes" of a search engine. They have fixed this long ago. In the past there was some benefit, and probably still is, but frankly, so many people are stuffing their URLs I believe that it's given less value these days by the engines. They DO pay attention to link text, and they can detect link spamming quite well. Just about everything once useful has been exploited to the point that the only thing the engines can count on is the content itself.

The single most productive change I made to my site was change the view listing link from "view listing", to the title of the ad. BIG change in my results. Nothing an engine hates more than repetitive link text. I don't use SF urls and my ads do very well in the engines. Content is king. All the key elements which Maffo has mentioned are a must.

Is the mod a waste? No. It will still give some edge, especially if you are in a very competitive market. But I wouldn't stay awake at night worrying about it either.

[Maffo]

My post on this thread was due to this post

If you want people to find your listings via a search engine the SEF mod is a must.

I agree that anything that helps make your site cleaner and helps further enhance it is beneficial.

It is like some fellow members agree, its not vital and a good structure and link campaign is far more important.