Comments on: Shorten Your Blog Post URLs So You Don’t Look Spammy to Google

By: Sunil Sheoran

Sunil Sheoran — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:06:58 +0000

Good post, I use SEO Slugs for optimizing the title slugs!

By: Globinch

Globinch — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 05:42:41 +0000

@Brad
If you go back and shorten your url the below can happen
“This will cause the old INDEXED pages do disappear, hence NO RANK.”

By: HighPoint

HighPoint — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:40:56 +0000

A great wordpress plugin is SEO smart slugs. the purpose is to make a short title that removes any of the stop words that are normally included in the title.

By: Blog Consulting | SEO Speakers | Steve Mertz

Blog Consulting | SEO Speakers | Steve Mertz — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:21:17 +0000

[...] A blog title should ideally be short and contain keywords. This is one of my favorite SEO techniques. Once you have your title write two or three paragraphs to support it. The copy should be informative, unique and filled with keywords where appropriate. Stephan Spencer has a great article on this called Shorten Your Blog Post URLs So You Don’t Look Spammy to Google. [...]

By: Leo F. Swiontek

Leo F. Swiontek — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:25:05 +0000

I have an even better tip. For the post title, make it as descriptive and relevant as possible to the content within the article with as few amount of words as possible. Then you wouldnâ€™t have to do double the work.

By: Stephan Spencer

Stephan Spencer — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:58:09 +0000

Hi Brad,

Thanks for dropping by! Hope you are doing well.

Once you upgrade your WordPress from 2.0.5 (on bradlaughs.com) to the latest version, you can safely ignore Knox’s advice and go ahead and shorten the post slugs. You WILL NOT lose pages out of Google’s index. That’s because recent versions of WordPress (e.g. 2.3) automatically do a “301 redirect” from the previous URLs to the new URLs. So if you change the post slug, the PageRank will flow to the new shortened URL because Googlebot will see the 301 and will follow it, passing the PageRank on to that destination.

I think it’s only worthwhile to go back and shorten your post slugs where the URLs look spammy because they are majorly stuffed with keywords.

BTW, you really should upgrade your WordPress anyways – for security reasons as well as functionality reasons. Any day now WordPress 2.5 will be out (it’s in beta at the moment), so I’d suggest you upgrade as soon as 2.5 comes out.

Good luck!

By: Knox

Knox — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:06:36 +0000

Brad – DO NOT go back and shorten the URL’s!!!!

This will cause the old INDEXED pages do disappear, hence NO RANK.

By: Brad Montgomery

Brad Montgomery — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:11:01 +0000

Oye! I’ve been breaking this rule by accident. Do you think it is worth going back to old posts and shortening them?
I have crammed my main keywords in nearly every post title. Shoot…. I goofed by accident.

Should I go back?

Thanks for the great post.

Brad

By: Jennifer - Keyword Research Tool

Jennifer - Keyword Research Tool — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:10:31 +0000

Great post & great tip! Thanks & keep up the great work

By: Stuffing Slugs, Titles and Content with Keywords

Stuffing Slugs, Titles and Content with Keywords — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:50:49 +0000

[...] See Shorten Your Blog Post URLs So You Donâ€™t Look Spammy to Google for the answer from Matt [...]

By: RealBusiness

RealBusiness — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:44:12 +0000

Great post, although i have never used too long headlines.

By: Terra Andersen

Terra Andersen — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:35:01 +0000

Wonderful post! My blog currently creates those long titles… it’s amazing that I haven’t changed this over yet.

By: Stephan Spencer

Stephan Spencer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:06:29 +0000

Hi Des,
The plugin should still work with WordPress 2.3. Without a slug trimming plugin, WordPress (even on the latest version) will make URLs that are too long.

By: Daven Wang

Daven Wang — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 01:06:39 +0000

Awesome Post! thank you so much for revealing this secret to newbies, much appreciate, keep up the good work!

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:39:23 +0000

Long URLs have never been an issue that I even considered important on my business Site.
Thanks for the heads up and well written article.

By: Steve Mertz

Steve Mertz — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:58:59 +0000

Great article-Thanks, Stephan!

By: More Business

More Business — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:25:15 +0000

Just pays to get your main keywords into the beginning of the title??

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:47:45 +0000

Good tip. I have played with WordPress a little, but this sounds like a good idea to implement. Thanks for the post.

By: Des Walsh

Des Walsh — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:27:32 +0000

Stephan
Fascinating post. The WordPress Slug Trimmer pluging link is to a post of July 2006, with no further sign of activity by the owner since. There are an unanswered comment of Dec 06 and a few trackbacks. The download site for the other plugin is more recent but there’s no sign of activity after May 07. Am I right in assuming there are no problems with WP 2.3 – or even WP 2.2?

By: Shawn A. Hessinger

Shawn A. Hessinger — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:29:15 +0000

Great post Stephan with what I think are some important SEO points. Avoiding downgrades and other sanctions is now sadly as important as building an audience.