URL structure best practices for Google Search
To make sure Google Search can crawl your site effectively, use a crawlable URL structure that meets the following requirements. If your URLs don't meet the following criteria, Google Search will likely crawl your site inefficiently — including but not limited to extremely high crawl rates, or not at all.
Requirements for a crawlable URL structure
Follow IETF STD 66
Google Search supports URLs as defined by IETF STD 66 . Characters defined by the standard as reserved must be percent encoded .
Don't use URL fragments to change content
Don't use fragments to change the content of a page, as Google Search generally doesn't support URL fragments. Here's an example of a URL fragment:
https://example.com/#/potatoes
If you're using JavaScript to change content, use the History API instead.
Use a common encoding for URL parameters
When specifying URL parameters, use the following common encoding: an equal sign
( =
) to separate key-value pairs and add additional parameters with an
ampersand ( &
). To list multiple values for the same key within a key-value
pair, you can use any character that doesn't conflict with IETF STD 66
, such as a comma
( ,
).
| Recommended | Not recommended |
|---|---|
Using an equal sign ( =
) to separate key-value pairs and an ampersand
( &
) to add additional parameters: https://example.com/category?category=dresses&sort=low-to-high&sid=789 |
Using a colon ( :
) to separate key-value pairs and brackets ( [ ]
)
to add additional parameters: https://example.com/category?[category:dresses][sort:price-low-to-high][sid:789] |
Using a comma ( ,
) to list multiple values for the same key, an equal sign
( =
) to separate key-value pairs, and an ampersand ( &
) to add
additional parameters: https://example.com/category?category=dresses&color=purple,pink,salmon&sort=low-to-high&sid=789 |
Using a single comma ( ,
) to separate key-value pairs and double
commas ( ,,
) to add additional parameters: https://example.com/category?category,dresses,,sort,lowtohigh,,sid,789 |
Make it easy to understand your URL structure
To help Google Search (and your users) better understand your site, we recommend creating a simple URL structure, applying the following best practices when possible.
Use descriptive URLs
When possible, use readable words rather than long ID numbers in your URLs.
| Recommended (simple, descriptive words) | Not recommended (unreadable, long ID numbers) |
|---|---|
https://example.com/ wiki/Aviation
|
https://example.com/ index.php?topic=42&area=3a5ebc944f41daa6f849f730f1
|
Use your audience's language
Use words in your audience's language in the URL (and, if applicable, transliterated words). For example, if your audience is searching in German, use German words in the URL:
https://example.com/ lebensmittel/pfefferminz
Or if your audience is searching in Japanese, use Japanese words in the URL:
https://example.com/ ペパーミント
Use percent encoding as necessary
When linking to pages on your site
,
use percent encoding in your links's href
attributes as necessary. Unreserved
ASCII characters may be left in the non-encoded form. Additionally, characters in the
non-ASCII range should be percent encoded. For example:
| Recommended (percent encoding) | Not recommended (non-ASCII characters) |
|---|---|
https://example.com/ %D9%86%D8%B9%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B9/%D8%A8%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9
|
https://example.com/ نعناع
|
https://example.com/ %E6%9D%82%E8%B4%A7/%E8%96%84%E8%8D%B7
|
https://example.com/ 杂货/薄荷
|
https://example.com/ gem%C3%BCse
|
https://example.com/ gemüse
|
https://example.com/ %F0%9F%A6%99%E2%9C%A8
|
https://example.com/ 🦙✨
|
Use hyphens to separate words
We recommend separating words in your URLs, when possible. Specifically, we recommend using
hyphens ( -
) instead of underscores ( _
) to
separate words in your URLs, as it helps users and search engines better identify
concepts in the URL. For historical reasons, we don't recommend using underscores, as
this style is already commonly used for denoting concepts that should be kept together,
for example, by various programming languages to name functions (such as format_date
).
| Recommended | Not recommended |
|---|---|
| Using hyphens ( https://example.com/summer -clothing/filter?color -profile=dark -grey |
Using underscores ( https://example.com/summer _clothing/filter?color _profile=dark _grey Joining words together in the URL: https://example.com/ greendress
|
Use as few parameters as you can
Be aware that URLs are case sensitive
/APPLE
and /apple
as
distinct URLs with their own content). If upper and lower case text in a URL is treated
the same by your web server, convert all text to the same case so it's easier for Google
to determine that URLs reference the same page.For multi-regional sites
If your site is multi-regional, consider using a URL structure that makes it easy to geotarget your site. For more examples of how you can structure your URLs, refer to using locale-specific URLs .
Recommended (using a country-specific domain):
https://example.de
Recommended (using a country-specific subdirectory with gTLD):
https://example.com/de/
Avoid common issues related to URLs
Overly complex URLs, especially those containing multiple parameters, can cause problems for crawlers by creating unnecessarily high numbers of URLs that point to identical or similar content on your site. As a result, Googlebot may consume much more bandwidth than necessary, or Google Search may be unable to completely index all the content on your site.
Unnecessarily high numbers of URLs can be caused by a number of issues. These include:
Additive filtering of a set of items
Many sites provide different views of the same set of items or search results, often allowing the user to filter this set using defined criteria (for example: show me hotels on the beach). When filters can be combined in an additive manner (for example: hotels on the beach and with a fitness center), the number of URLs (views of data) in the sites explodes. Creating a large number of slightly different lists of hotels is redundant, as Googlebot only needs to see a small number of lists from which it can reach the page for each hotel. For example:
- Hotel properties at "value rates":
https://example.com/hotel-search-results.jsp?Ne=292&N=461
- Hotel properties at "value rates" on the beach:
https://example.com/hotel-search-results.jsp?Ne=292&N=461+4294967240
- Hotel properties at "value rates" on the beach and with a fitness center:
https://example.com/hotel-search-results.jsp?Ne=292&N=461+4294967240+4294967270
Irrelevant parameters
Irrelevant parameters in the URL can cause a large number of URLs, such as:
- Referral parameters:
https://example.com/search/noheaders?click=6EE2BF1AF6A3D705D5561B7C3564D9C2&clickPage=OPD+Product+Page&cat=79
https://example.com/discuss/showthread.php?referrerid=249406&threadid=535913
https://example.com/products/products.asp?N=200063&Ne=500955&ref=foo%2Cbar&Cn=Accessories
- Shopping sorting parameters:
https://example.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=tpb&search_sort=relevance&search_category=25
- Session IDs:
https://example.com/search/noheaders?sessionid=6EE2BF1AF6A3D705D5561B7C3564D9C2
Consider using a robots.txt file to block Googlebot's access to these problematic URLs.
Calendar issues
A dynamically generated calendar might generate links to future and previous dates with no restrictions on start or end dates. For example:
https://example.com/calendar.php?d=13&m=8&y=2011
If your site has an infinite calendar, add a nofollow
attribute to links to dynamically created future calendar pages.
Broken relative links
<a href="../../category/stuff">...</a>
on https://example.com/category/community/070413/html/FAQ.htm
may lead to bogus URLs such as https://example.com/category/community/category/stuff
.
To fix, use root-relative URLs in your links (instead of parent-relative).Fixing crawling-related URL structure problems
If you notice that Google Search is crawling these problematic URLs, we recommend the following:
- Consider using a robots.txt file to block Googlebot's access to problematic URLs . Typically, consider blocking dynamic URLs, such as URLs that generate search results, or URLs that can create infinite spaces, such as calendars, and ordering and filtering functions.
- If your site has faceted navigation, learn how to manage crawling of those faceted navigation URLs .
