Choosing the Right CMS - URL Rewrite Importance

While there are many important factors to look at when choosing the right content management system for your organization, one often overlooked area is the ability to rewrite dynamic URLS to human and search engine friendly URLs. While the debate fuels on about the importance of using keywords in your URLs to boost rankings, tests have shown that these remapped dynamic URLs can increase your click through rate.The following is an example of a dynamic URL:

www.mysite.com/index.aspx?option=com_content&task=view&id=2985&Itemid=33

This URL is more of an indicator to the database as to what information from the database to display, than it is as an indicator for both search engines and humans as to what the page is about. If we rewrite this URL to a more user friendly:

www.mysite.com/Portfolio/Website_Design.aspx

We can now see the benefits of the keyword rich URL, that shows both the search engines and the human user as to what this page is about. How much of a bonus does this friendlier URL give you? Again, the debate is out on this, but the fact that Google will bold the keywords that show up in your URL as compared to the search terms is a pretty good indicator that it does matter. While you are not only providing an easier to read URL for humans to look at, you are also providing data to a potential linker as to what anchor text they should use when linking to this page.

Many choices are available when it comes to content management systems, but only a few make it very easy to re-write the dynamic URLs into keyword friendly URLs. If you are looking for a blogging platform, then WordPress is an obvious CMS to use. There are several articles out there in helping you rewrite URLs. If you are looking for a CMS for developing a website around, then we recommend DotNetNuke. We integrate the ability to add search engine friendly URLs into each and ever DotNetNuke based website we build. Just one more way we make sure your website is search engine optimized from the initial launch.