When optimizing your website's URLs and content for search engines, it's crucial to understand which characters are safe to use and which ones to avoid. I'll break down the essential rules for character usage in SEO.

Safe Characters to Use:

- Letters (a-z, A-Z)
- Numbers (0-9)
- Hyphens (-)
- Underscores (_)
- Forward slashes (/)
- Periods (.)

Characters to Avoid:

- Spaces
- Special characters (@, #, $, %, &, *, etc.)
- Question marks (?)
- Ampersands (&)
- Equal signs (=)
- Plus signs (+)
- Brackets ([ ])
- Backslashes (\)
- Accent marks (é, è, à, etc.)

Best Practices for URL Structure:

When creating URLs, I recommend using hyphens (-) to separate words instead of underscores (_) or spaces. This is because Google specifically recommends hyphens as word separators, making them more SEO-friendly.

For example: ✓ www.example.com/best-seo-practices ✗ www.example.com/best_seo_practices ✗ www.example.com/best%20seo%20practices

File Names and Media:

The same rules apply to file names for images, videos, and other media:

- Use lowercase letters
- Replace spaces with hyphens
- Avoid special characters
- Keep names descriptive but concise

For example: ✓ blue-sport-shoes.jpg ✗ Blue Sport Shoes!.jpg

International Character Considerations:

If your website targets international audiences, it's best to stick with standard ASCII characters rather than using language-specific special characters. This ensures better compatibility across different systems and browsers.

Instead of: München-straße.html Use: muenchen-strasse.html

Common Mistakes to Avoid:

- Using spaces in URLs or file names
- Mixing special characters with regular text
- Including stop words (a, the, and, or, but)
- Creating unnecessarily long URLs
- Using uppercase letters

By following these guidelines for character usage, you'll create cleaner, more search-engine-friendly URLs that improve your website's SEO performance and user experience. Remember, simplicity and consistency are key when choosing which characters to use in your web content.

Related Articles

Previous Articles