I currently run a mod rewrite to change my url from http://url/something.php?id=12 to http://url/id12. I have been thinking about changing the rewrite to include http://url/id12-the-page-title. Would including keywords in the mod rewrite url be good for seo or do keywords have to be in the actual page name to do any good?

Dont just add keywords to the URL for the sake of it search engines dont like this and they know when something has been added as spam and when its been added as it is relevant.

Adding the title to the URL is an exellent thing to do and is highly recomended but to the also add keywords just for the sake of it goes down the road of spam and you will end up being penalised for it.

That was right! That was wrong strategy by using your keywords into your url... theres other way to optimized your keywords and only need to do is focus in some essential part of HTML.

I think you may have misunderstood me. I was talking about adding the ad title to the url. For ex: http://url/id12-1997-ford-f150-forsale for an article with title: 1997 ford f150 forsale. I didn't mean to put the same keywords in all the urls because each of the titles is different, they are just keywords to that article.

I think if you got the keyword already in your url then that would do it. One keyword on the title and another keyword in the url is enough.

Originally Posted by nlassiter

I currently run a mod rewrite to change my url from http://url/something.php?id=12 to http://url/id12. I have been thinking about changing the rewrite to include http://url/id12-the-page-title. Would including keywords in the mod rewrite url be good for seo or do keywords have to be in the actual page name to do any good?

Well, if you are quite happy to lose ALL your referral traffic for anything up to 6 months for a miniscule gain, go ahead.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Well, if you are quite happy to lose ALL your referral traffic for anything up to 6 months for a miniscule gain, go ahead.

Thats not hard to fix though is it come on, all he has to do is put in a redirect for any important pages which can be found in his stats.

As for the rest simpley putting in a custom error page explaining the site has gone though some changes and saying sorry.

The 6 months IS with a mod_rewrite 301 redirect in place! Without? possibly up to a year.

Not a matter of being negative, merely pointing out the pitfalls. Or would you prefer it if we answer every question by telling people that only good things will happen.

They would not lose all there referal traffic for 6 months from doing it though.

Referal traffic from websites other than search engines will not change at all and search engines will take a while before all the pages are removed by which time if you have a deasent site and are any good at SEO/SEM then the new pages will already be doing well so loss of traffic from SE's is not anything like as bad as your making out. Aswell as the fact the main domain name will still be the same which is the page which ranks best for main search terms if the site was done properly in the first place.

Its just nearly every message I ever read of your it is trying to put people down and you talk down to people like they are not worthy of your presance and you are always very negative with anything at all to do with website premotion.

So will a url like http://url/1997-ford-f150 do the same seo-wise as http://url/1997-ford-f150.html?

thanks for all the response

It really, really, really doesn't matter one teeny, tiny, miniscule bit /page.asp?item=f150 will be equally as good for search engines.

keywords in the URL and pagenames has such a minute effect on optimisation it really really isn't worth the disruption to a site that changing them will cause.

If you are starting a new site with them fine, do it. Existing site? The minute gain is certainly not worth the effort.