Google doesn’t care if the URL contains stop words
John Mueller, Google, answered a question regarding whether stop words should appear in URLs.
Mueller addressed the question but also discussed the effects of URLs on words and suggested how to approach URLs that use words.
Background of Search Words
Stop Words are words like “a,” “and,” or “the.”
These words were not considered necessary in the early day’s search because they weren’t crucial for search engines.
In the early 2000s, stop words weren’t considered necessary as search engines didn’t understand the content of pages. They identified the keywords to which a page was relevant, and stop words were generally ignored.
Bill Slawski mentioned this inadequacy of stop words in a 2008 article ( New Google Method to Indexing and Stopwords).
“Not too long-ago, you may have been warned by Google if you typed in the phrase “a room with views” without quotation marks.
You might have seen results such as “a room with views” or “room with views” in your search for “a bedroom with a view.” Or other phrases that substituted stop words. It was less likely that you would find what you wanted when searching for a term with stop words.
Later in the year, Bill wrote about another patent that discusses meaningful stopwords. This could be considered a turning point in Google’s handling of stop words in search queries.
His article covered a patent that determined if the stop word was meaningful.
This means that stop words such as “a” or “the” may sometimes be necessary for the meaning of keyword phrases. However, just like the previous patent Bill mentioned, this patent was restricted to stop words in search queries and content.
Patents didn’t bother to include stop words in URLs.
Do stop words matter in URLs?
Stop Words in URL
John Mueller paraphrased:
“In short, should I add stopper words to words that are taken from page titles in the URL?
For example, should I call a page why-is-the-sky-blue.html or why-sky-blue.html?”
Mueller answered:
Google Search only uses URLs for keywords.
It is important not to overthink it.
It would help if you use durable URLs, don’t change them often, and make them helpful to users.
It doesn’t matter if you add stop words to them or decide to use numeric IDs. That’s up to you.
Mueller reduced the importance of keywords in URLs to the point where he stated that it didn’t matter whether one used numeric IDs in URLs.
A numeric ID is a URL file name without words, such as /article-id-12345.
This answer is similar to the Google Office hours hangout answers he gave in 2016
Mueller stated:
“I think that it’s a minor ranking factor, and so it’s not something I would try to force.
It’s not worth the effort to restructure a website to include keywords in URLs.
Mueller did not mention URL words as a ranking factor six years later. He stated that URLs played a “small role in Google Search.”
Mueller said that URLs should be helpful and easy to use.
Google won’t show URLs in search results. It doesn’t even matter if URLs contain stop words.
A URL with stop words that provide meaningful context is more likely to look natural in a context that allows a potential site visitor to see it. This can lead to more confidence and higher click-through rates.
Google’s documentation on URLs lists several best practices.
Use readable words in URLs instead of long ID numbers.
If applicable, localized words in URL
If necessary, use UTF-8 encoding.”
Google claims that hyphens help the search engine understand concepts. This is something to consider.
Use hyphens to distinguish words in URLs. This helps search engines and users identify concepts more quickly. Use hyphens (-), instead of underscores, in your URLs.
These guidelines also include things you should not do:
It is not recommended to use non-ASCII characters within the URL
Not recommended: Unreadable, long ID numbers in the URL:https://www.example.com/index.php?id_sezione=360&sid=3a5ebc944f41daa6f849f730f1
It is not recommended to combine keywords in the URL:
https://www.example.com/greendress
You will find many warnings and recommendations about URLs on the Google Search Central page. However, there is nothing about stop words.
This is probably an oversight. It may indicate that it might be trivial in the grand scheme.
John Mueller stated that “that’s completely up to you.”
