This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung
SEO
What is a clean URL and why does the service check it?
The address of a page is part of its content: it is in the search result, in every shared link and in every external link. An address such as /services/consultation says what it is about and remains the same for years. An address with capital letters, umlauts, spaces or four parameters, on the other hand, breaks when copying, is linked in two spellings and thus waters down the signals that make a page strong in the search. The SEO check area reads the address of the measured page and reports each of these peculiarities.
What exactly is checked
Six features cost points: a path with more than 115 characters, more than three query parameters behind the question mark, uppercases in the path, umlauts or other special characters, a double slash and spaces or underscores. A single feature costs two of the three points, several all three. Capital letters are tricky because web servers usually distinguish capital and lower case: /contact and /contact are two sides, one of which can lead to nowhere or be considered a duplicate. Umlauts are broken down into percentage codes when copied and are then no longer readable. Parameter chains often arise from filters and sessions and generate an unlimited number of addresses for the same content.
Do not simply change existing addresses
An unclean address that has been linked for years has value – it must not be lost when cleaning up. Whoever changes addresses sets up permanent redirects from the old to the new address and updates sitemap and internal links. For new pages: lower case, hyphens as separators, umlauts as ae, oe, ue or ss, no date and no identification number in the path, no parameters for content that deserves a fixed page. Editorial systems can usually be set so that they apply these rules when creating. The check area evaluates only the shape of the address, not its contents — whether /page-1 is a good name, decides the human.
- Set the editorial system so that new addresses are written in lower case, with hyphens and without umlauts.
- Forward changed addresses permanently (301) to the new form and update internal links and sitemap.
- Keep filter and session parameters out of indexable addresses; Give important filter results their own fixed page.
- After a relaunch, check the ten most linked old addresses by hand - there a break hurts the most.
