Improve click-throughs with the right URL names

I found a study today from MSN that tracks the eye movements of people looking at the search engine results – usability_study.pdf. The study provides some good information on what people are focusing on when they look at a search engine results page after a keyword search. The study tracks time spent on which number they are looking at (ie 1-10) and also what area of the search result they are focusing on (ie title, description, and URL) Today I want to focus on the results regarding the URLs.

I figured people spent most if not all of their time looking at the titles (the linked text) and the descriptions (the text underneath the linked text) when scanning the search results. But according to this study, people spend between 22-25% of the time looking at the URL. See chart below:

Since people are looking at the URLs to determine whether a page is relevant to the search result, it’s important to give your pages good names to encourage click throughs. Here’s an example of a good and bad url –

Bad URL –
www.example.com/category?t=1849769?v=AolQyORx9ddIoU&query=diecasting

Good URL –
www.example.com/category/die-casting

Use keywords in your pages, dashes or underscores to separate the keywords, and also make sure they are not too long and filled with too many queries.

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