/articletitle/ vs /articletitle/2334 vs .

[meee]

I am unable to use www.domainname.com/articletitle

So I have the following options:

/articletitle/
/articletitle/2334 (the number as article id)
/354/articletitle (the number as article id)
/categoryname/articletitle

I am guessing that www.domainname.com/some/ would be the best and as good as www.domainname.com/some

I am just not sure if there is any negative side of using slash at the end because it seems like directory and not static file. Will this make ANY difference for Google?

And secondly, I am not absolute sure if I will be able to use even www.domainname.com/articletitle/.

So in which order would you put the mentioned solutions? I think the following, am I right?

1. /articletitle/
2. /articletitle/2334
3. /categoryname/articletitle
4. /3543/articletitle

[tedster]

The only Google issue worth major concern is whether the URL attracts clicks when it's displayed below the snippet. In other words, there is no direct ranking implication here. There might have been in years gone by, but not in 2010.

So I'd say that shorter URLs are better - and agree that simply adding the final slash is best. Including the category name might be helpful, depending on the site navigation - you might get better sitelinks or rich snippet breadcrumbs.

But if you have lots of categories and use breadcrumb trails on your pages, then you don't really benefit from making the URL longer just to include it.

If you can't add the closing slash, then adding the numeric identifier is fine. To me it looks and feels better before the article title, but I don't think there's any impact on Google at all.

If you do decide to add the article number, make sure your system doesn't allow "URL fluffing" - in other words, make sure your server requires the entire URL to be accurate and doesn't just key off the number.

[emor8t]

The only Google issue worth major concern is whether the URL attracts clicks when it's displayed below the snippet. In other words, there is no direct ranking implication here. There might have been in years gone by, but not in 2010.

Are you talking about just the trailing slash?

Forgive me if I've read that wrong but you seem to suggest that the url www.somedomain.com/1234/ is just as good as www.somedomain.com/some-keywords.

[tedster]

You do read me correctly. What I mean is that, for ranking purposes, the file path itself has a only a minimal effect these days. Domain name keyword matches are a different story, but "keyword in the file path" is at most a secondary or reinforcing factor, not primary. Google has moved on!

Why would they rank a site primarily because they use URL rewriting software? They want to rank the best and most relevant content, not the prettiest URLs.

However, the example that you just posted only uses a number for the file path, and that was not one of your original options. In that case, I'd still prefer to see the article title with keywords. But that is mostly for attracting the click rather than pumping up the ranking. Ranking itself will only be a side issue, especially because the article title will also be the page's title element and probably the page heading, too, as well as being reflected in the article itself.

The file path is an area where what once was true is not necessarily what's true now. Having some keywords in the file path it still a best practice, but it isn't so big a deal anymore, just like H1 tags. I also see anchor text as not nearly as big a deal as it used to be. It's still there, but now it's part of a much more in-depth mix of factors and inputs.

So my personal point of view is, whatever URL schema you choose, make sure your that server does not allow any URL variations to resolve as 200 OK. If you have infrastructure limitations that mean you can't avoid or redirect some URL variations, then use the canonical link tag.

Get the technical foundation of your URLs nailed down on the server and then build and promote great content on a sound basis. As I said before, Google has moved on... and they will keep on moving.