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Does "%20" in URL affect SEO?

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  • 10-03-2011 11:49am
    #1
    Itsdacraic
    Registered Users Posts: 2,361 ✭✭✭


    Hi,

    Quick query, the structure of my CMS/Website means that when I enter a page name it appears automatically in the top left hand corner of the webpage. This name also becomes the URL for that page. For example, if I am creating a page about red cars I would enter "Nice Red Cars" as the page name. So my <h1> heading is automatically generated by the CMS, which is fine, but my url then becomes www.nicecars.ie/nice%20red%20cars.php

    I am just wondering if this affects SEO? I know %20 is HTML code for a space, but I'm just wondering if search engine spiders also interpret it as a space or does it appear as a line of gibberish?

    Ideally the URL would appear as /nice-red-cars.php but then that looks stupid as the heading on the webpage.

    Any input appreciated.


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    #2
    blue4ever
    Registered Users Posts: 1,256 ✭✭✭blue4ever


    Interesting point - the %20 is a standard expression for a space - so perhaps there is an allowance for it.

    Outside speculating on the algorithms I'd suggest that the URL appearing in a search list may not be as appealing to the eye as others without the %20.

    (as an aside - are the URL's showing up in search results with the %20 check be searching "site:mysite.com")

    Perhaps the best thing to do is to strip them out. If your on an apache server you can have a search for a mod rewrite that will do that for you automatically.

    Personally, if they were showing up in any sites I look after, I'd err on the side of caution and strip them.


    C


  • Options
    #3
    Itsdacraic
    Registered Users Posts: 2,361 ✭✭✭Itsdacraic


    blue4ever wrote: »
    Interesting point - the %20 is a standard expression for a space - so perhaps there is an allowance for it.

    Outside speculating on the algorithms I'd suggest that the URL appearing in a search list may not be as appealing to the eye as others without the %20.

    (as an aside - are the URL's showing up in search results with the %20 check be searching "site:mysite.com")

    Perhaps the best thing to do is to strip them out. If your on an apache server you can have a search for a mod rewrite that will do that for you automatically.

    Personally, if they were showing up in any sites I look after, I'd err on the side of caution and strip them.


    C

    Cheers Blue, good answer.

    Yes they show up in the site: search. The fact it's such a standard expression, was the reason why I was querying it. I have some long tail results ranking fairly highly so I'm not sure if it is having a negative impact in terms of the search results.

    I definitely agree on the visual aspect of it. It just looks messy.
    I believe the server is Apache alright, but I am far from a coder/php expert, HTML is about my limit. Would the mod you are talking about allow the %20 to be stripped from the URL but without changing the actually pointing of the URL.

    Say my pages are generally only crawled by google on a monthly basis, so if I ran that mod (or got a developer to do it) would my urls in the google index still work? (not sure if I'm getting my question across right!)


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