Matt Cutts: “Keywords In The URL Can Help”
Nice spot by Barry at SEW:
“Most bloggy sites tend to have words from the title of a post in the url; having keywords from the post title in the url also can help search engines judge the quality of a page“. Did Matt just say, that keywords repeated from the post title in the URL, can help “search engines judge the quality of a page.” Honestly, I have been listening to Matt talk in person, on radio, on video and on forums for a long, long time now and I have never seen him come out and say this“.
He doesn’t say, of course, how much keywords in the URL will help, but every little morsel helps, right?
dburdon
It certainly appears to work with blogger posts. The post title becomes part of the extended url. However, a typical blog post title tends to refer to a highly specific and – perhaps – uncompetitive subject or keyword phrase.
In a blogging context an alignment of URL, post title and content creates definite “on page” synergy.
Halfdeck
The real meat is often in his comments:
Tim:
“Does having words in the URL increase or decrease the assumed “quality†of the page? Or would it be more appropriate to say “can help search engines judge the subject of a pageâ€?
Matt:
“Tim, including the keyword in the url just gives another chance for that keyword to match the user’s query in some way. That’s the way I’d put it.”