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July 2022 Newsletter

Summary

Review and update your list of users; learn more about SEO-friendly URL structure.

Contacts Confirmation

Review/Update Your List of Users

We will be conducting a review of our search sites’ authorized users, to be completed by the end of September. Similar to a user recertification process, we will be asking you to please confirm that the users’ names and email addresses listed on your search site(s) are correct, and if this is not the case, to make any necessary updates. 

This confirmation process will be managed using a Touchpoints form that we will email to you. Thank you in advance for taking the time to help us with this request!

SEO Friendly URLs

Keep a Simple URL Structure

URLs’ structure matters as they communicate how your website is organized. They are basically the bridge between the content your website offers and your users. Here are two reasons why having a good and simple URL structure makes sense:

  1. User experience: You can significantly improve your user experience by having a SEO-friendly URL structure. URLs that are simple, easy to read, and that include keywords make it easier for the user to navigate your website’s content. Simple URLs help search engines deliver relevant results to searchers and can tell them exactly what they’ll see if they choose to click on a search result.
  2. Page rank: URL structure tells search engines what your website’s pages are about and how they relate to each other. SEO-friendly URLs make it easier for search engines to index your website and offer relevant content to searchers. Additionally, they increase the likelihood of the link being clicked, which can also increase your page rank.

Dos and Don’ts for SEO-friendly URL structure:

Do:

  1. Use HTTPS protocol
  2. Customize your website’s folders and filenames to be descriptive of the content within each page.
  3. Keep it short and simple
  4. Use 1-2 meaningful keywords
  5. Use hyphens to separate words
  6. Use lowercase letters
  7. Redirect old URLs to current, live pages

Don’t:

  1. Include stop words (the, and, or, of, a, an, to, for, etc.)
  2. Include punctuation (transform colons into hyphens, skip commas entirely)
  3. If you must include punctuation, make sure that each character is HTML encoded

Read more about SEO-friendly URL structure.

And we also recommend this Digitalgov article on SEO-friendly URL structure and how it can help you boost your rankings.

Release Notes

Want to learn about the latest features, fixes, and focuses of the Search team? We post monthly Release Notes on our website.

Read the latest notes


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July 01, 2022