{"id":15434,"date":"2022-09-19T09:24:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T09:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/stop-words-in-url\/464774\/"},"modified":"2022-09-19T09:24:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T09:24:11","slug":"google-answers-if-stop-words-should-be-used-in-url-via-sejournal-martinibuster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/?p=15434","title":{"rendered":"Google Answers If Stop Words Should Be Used in URL via @sejournal, @martinibuster"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Google\u2019s John Mueller answered a question about whether stop words should be used in the URLs.<\/p>\n

Mueller answered the question but also discussed the impact of words in URLs and recommended how to approach what words are used in URLs.<\/p>\n

Background of Stop Words in Search<\/h2>\n

Stop Words are common words like \u201ca\u201d, \u201cand\u201d, and \u201cthe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early days of search, those kinds of words used to not be considered important for SEO because they weren\u2019t considered important for search engines.<\/p>\n

As I recall, in the early 2000s, stop words were not considered important because search engines of the time didn\u2019t actually understand what a page is about. They worked by identifying what keywords a page was relevant for, with stop words being generally disregarded.<\/p>\n

Bill Slawski alluded to this lack of importance of stop words in an article from 2008 (New Google Approach to Indexing and Stopwords<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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\u201cNot too long ago, if you entered in Google the phrase (without quotation marks) \u201ca room with a view,\u201d you might have received some warnings that your query contained \u201cStopwords.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that search for \u201ca room with a view,\u201d you might have received results like \u201ca room for a view,\u201d or \u201croom to view,\u201d or other phrases that replaced some stop words with others. That made it less likely to find exactly what you were looking for when you searched for a phrase with stop words in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Later that year Bill wrote about a different patent that discusses meaningful stop words<\/a>, and that could be considered a turning point in how Google handled stop words in search queries and on webpage content.<\/p>\n

His article discussed a patent that determined whether the stop word was meaningful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The result is that sometimes stop words like \u201ca\u201d and \u201cthe\u201d were considered important to the meaning of keyword phrases, but this patent, like the previous patent Bill discussed, was limited to stop words in the content and in search queries.<\/p>\n

The patents didn\u2019t even bother with stop words in the URL.<\/p>\n

So, do stop words matter when they\u2019re in a URL?<\/p>\n

Stop Words in a URL<\/h2>\n

John Mueller paraphrased the question:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIn Short, when using words from a page title in the URL, should I include stopper words, too?<\/p>\n

For example, should I call a page why-is-the-sky-blue.html or why-sky-blue.html?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mueller answered:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cWords in URLs only play a tiny role for Google Search.<\/p>\n

I would recommend not overthinking it.<\/p>\n

Use the URLs that can last over time, avoid changing them too often and try to make them useful for users.<\/p>\n

Whether you include stop words in them or not, decide to use numeric IDs, that\u2019s totally up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Importance of Stop Words in URL is Minimal<\/h2>\n

Mueller minimized the importance to Google of words in the URL, to the point that he said it didn\u2019t matter if one uses numeric IDs in a URL.<\/p>\n

A numeric ID is a URL file name that doesn\u2019t have any words, like \/article-id-12345.<\/p>\n

That answer is similar to a Google Office hours hangout answer he gave back in 2016 (watch at the 17:57 minute mark<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Mueller said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cI believe that\u2019s a very small ranking factor, so it\u2019s not something I\u2019d really try to force.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not something where I\u2019d say it\u2019s even worth your effort to kind of restructure a site just so you can include keywords in the URL.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Six years later, Mueller didn\u2019t even mention whether words in URL were even a tiny ranking factor, he just said that they played a \u201ctiny role for Google Search.\u201d<\/p>\n

Circling back to the use of stop words in the URL, Mueller said to make the URLs useful for users and that\u2019s good advice.<\/p>\n

Google doesn\u2019t show the URLs in the search results, so it doesn\u2019t matter (for click through rate) if the URLs contain stop words or not because it won\u2019t have an effect in any way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely, in a context where a potential site visitor can see the URL, a URL that contains stop words that add meaningful context will look more natural than a URL that is missing those stop words and as a consequence may inspire more confidence and a higher click through rate.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s own documentation on URLs<\/a> list several rules to follow as a best practice.<\/p>\n

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