File Naming Conventions
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Search Engine Optimization > File Naming Conventions
File naming conventions refers to the method that you name
each of your web pages. This is an EXTREMELY important part of
search engine optimization. I hate using all capital letters but I
can't stress enough the importance of file naming.
The best way to think of it is that this is a way
that you're directly telling a search engine what the
content is on that specific page. It's important to do
your
keyword
research before you name files because once a search
engine has indexed your page it's not recommended that
you change file names.
What Are File Naming Conventions
File name conventions, again, are the way that you name your web
pages so that search engines can use it as a method of determining
what your web page is about. It's important that you use these names
wisely and not abuse them.
Consider this, you have a web page about search engine tools. If you
didn't use a standard file naming convention you may name it
webpage1.htm. A search engine could still crawl the web page to
determine the subject matter but they give relevancy to the file
names.
A better way to name the page would be to name it
search-engine-tools.com. This is specifically telling the search
engines that this page is related to 'search engine tools'. This is
valuable because at this point search engines will use this data
when determining the subject matter of your web page.
To 'Dash' Or 'Underscore'
When naming your files it's recommended that you separate your
keywords with a dash. If you take a look at the file name that I
gave this page you'll find that I named it with the use of dashes,
file-naming-conventions.htm.
Matt Cutts, a famed Google engineer, writes one of the most visited
blogs on the internet for webmasters as he'll give tips and tricks
on various workings of Google and how to achieve decent rankings. He
wrote a specific post on the use of 'dashes' or 'underscores' that
may shed some light on the subject. You can find the page at
dashes vs. underscores.
Using Your Popular Keywords
When you're naming a page it's important to find out if the keywords
are even searched. For instance when I named this page I did a
keyword query at
WordTracker to
find out what the most common phrases that are typed in regards to
file naming.
I found that the keywords, 'file naming convention' is a popular
search term so I included that in my file name and of course,
separated each keyword with a dash.
It's important to note that you don't want to name files names
like:
file-naming-conventions-best-practice-should-i-use-a-dash-or-underscore.htm.
This isn't what the search engines have in mind when they try to
determine relevancy. With that said, your job is to make search
engines realize how relevant and unique the content is on your web
page.
Naming Directories
Another naming convention to consider is when you're naming
directories. If your website is in depth you may consider placing
files in regards to certain topics.
For instance, you sell car parts, you may have sections on tires,
wheels, windshields, etc. Rather than placing all of your files in
one place you may consider filing them so that they are easy to
retrieve.
For demonstration purposes you have a folder name wheels and one
named tires. All of your pages related to tires goes in the tires
folder and all of the files related to wheels go in the wheels
folder.
When you publish your website it would be something on the order
of
YourWebsite.com/wheels/ford-mustang-chrome-wheels.htm. As you
can see the file name that you use becomes part of the URL that
search engines will index so it's important to use the same naming
scheme when you're naming the file folders as well.
It's a great way to stay organized along with the added benefit
of helping the search engines determine the content of your web
page.
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