Are you a website owner? Then listen to this: The URL, also known as the Uniform Resource Locator, is the address of a web page on the Internet. So each page you have has a URL that starts with the website domain right after the protocol and continues with the path and other details. A good understanding of URL structures is of great importance for anyone who cares about the visibility of their website. Because URL optimization is among the known SEO criteria of Google and other search engines.
After all, anything that affects the user experience should be our concern, right?
The Seorative team has created an effective URL guide for beginners. Do not forget to contact us via the contact form under the content to get technical optimization service for your brand’s website and to ask other questions about URL structures. If you’re ready, let’s dive in!
Contents
What is URL? – Brief Definition
URL is a structure that determines the address of each page in the World Wide Web and makes it possible to make fundamental network identification. Any written content, video, image, or document in the web world can be found and hosted by its URL. A URL containing the extension specifying the protocol, website domain name, and page properties can be viewed by any user.
What Are the Parts of the URL?
A standard URL consists of 5 basic parts. We have listed these parts for you as follows:
- Scheme (also called a protocol)
- Subdomain (if any)
- Second-level domain
- Top-level domain
- Subdirectory
We will now examine each of these parts through an example.
Scheme
The field that indicates which protocol the website you are accessing is using is called the scheme. If you pay attention to the fact that websites usually use HTTP or HTTPS, you will be able to notice the scheme part immediately. HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure and is very important for protecting the personal data of users accessing the website. All search engines, especially Google, see HTTPS as an important factor for a secure user experience. So much so that websites that do not have this protocol can be marked as “untrusted”.
So, here is an example:
Subdomain
Some websites may host blog pages or certain service pages in a subdomain connected to the main domain. In this case, you will see this subdomain information right after the protocol. Here is an URL example:
Second Level Domain
The second-level domain is the name given to the word in the URL with a subdomain that identifies the site’s own domain. In the example we gave above, the word “blog” is the word that takes the user to the subdomain, while the word “Hubspot”, which constitutes the actual domain name of the website, refers to the second-level domain.
Top-Level Domain
A top-level domain, also known as TLD, refers to the entity you use to host the internet. The most popular TLDs are as follows:
- Generic Top Level Domains: com, org, net, we, info, xyz
- Sponsored Top Level Domains: gov, edu, mil
- Country Code Top Level Domains: us, uk, cn, es, en, eu
As you might have guessed, a URL can contain both a generic top-level domain and a country code top-level domain. In the example below we will be showing you both.
Subdirectory
The field that will specify which part of your website content is in is called a subdirectory. This area can usually be a specific category on the website. For example, in an e-commerce site, both the ‘’Women’’ category and the parent category named “Dresses” can represent a subdirectory field.
The field that says “blog” in the URL above indicates exactly which part of the website the page you are on is. Yes, you guessed right, you are on the blog page!
What is an SEO Compatible URL and How Should It Be?
Now you know the URL meaning. So it’s time to understand why this concept is mentioned so much in technical SEO works. As Seorative, we are ready to make your pages more noticeable by search engine bots, SEO-compatible, and user-oriented by optimizing the URL of your website, which represents the digital face of your brand.
Here are the most basic features of SEO compatible URLs with small hints from Seorative experts:
- They contain one or more of the keywords that your content addresses.
- They contain hyphens to properly separate keywords.
- They have short, understandable, and memorable structures.
- They have a flatter structure and limited folders.
Are you ready to be boosted by this technical change?
It’s time to discover more.
Need to learn more? Contact us now via the contact form below. We are ready to perfect your URL structure while doing the technical optimization of your site!