On-page - Do you use dashes in your URLs?

Updated by Seth Daily [SSW] 6 months ago. See history

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For maximum readability and SEO use kebab-case (dashes) in your URLs and make them short and friendly.

Learn more on Best Practices for URL Structure.

northwind.com/pageonworddocumentation

❌ Figure: Bad example - No kebab-case in URL

northwind.com/PageOnWordDocumentation

❌ Figure: Bad example - PascalCase (better readability and still works in small caps, but other people might share it without the MixedCase)

northwind.com/page on word documentation

...will become

northwind.com/page20%on20%word20%documentation

❌ Figure: Bad example - spaces it will show up in your URL structure as 20%, which is bad for readability and SEO

northwind.com/page_on_word_documentation

😐 Figure: OK example - underscored (snake_case) URLs have good readability but are not recommended by Google

northwind.com/page-on-word-documentation

✅ Figure: Good example - kebab-case is recommended by Google. Note: Don't use any uppercase

Not for domains! This is only for pages and documents. Domains are bad when they have dashes in them.

Read more on SEO 101: Hyphens vs. Underscores in URLs.


More info: You can install the IIS URL Rewrite Module for IIS7 you can make ugly URLs much more friendly.

<imageEmbed alt="Image" size="large" showBorder={false} figureEmbed={{ preset: "default", figure: 'Rewrite both the HTML in the page and the incoming URL\'s to be friendly', shouldDisplay: true }} src="/uploads/rules/use-dashes-in-urls/friendly-url-rule.jpg" />

The caveat here is that it will only work if the URL is in the clear on the page.

Note: This could only be done with certain links as others are postbacks as well.

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