URL Extensions (with or without??!!)

[Artience]

Hello, SEOers~

Today I have a question about URL extensions.

Which one is more search engine friendly between URL with extensions and without extensions?

e.g.

• URL with extension : www.example.com/tv/lcd.jsp

• URL without extension : www.example.com/tv/lcd

I heard that URL without extensions is in trend considering user experience.

User experience is also important but I would like to know from SEO perspective.

Please people~ Help me out with this~! Thanks.

[mad2k]

Hi,

In my opinion you can treat is using KISS - keep it simply stupid. When you ask somebody on a street what does lcd.jsp mean you can't get a correct answer but if you ask about 'lcd" many people will tell you correct answer.

Think robots are created as we are... and now is a big trend to use "friendly links".

so  www.example.com/tv/lcd is correct and more accurate.

and follow this rule you can build link pyramid:

www.example.com/tv

www.example.com/tv/lcd

www.example.com/tv/lcd/sony

www.example.com/tv/lcd/sony/model-xxx

and so on, it creates very good link structure

[Vahe.Arabian]

Generally without extension is better as it reduces your URL length, hence improves focus on the keywords used.

[DougRoberts]

Agree with Marek that you can certainly make URLs a lot firendlier for normal human beings. It can also help keep the urls shorter which can help when people are social sharing.

One significant advantage of dropping the extension is that it makes it so much easier if you ever want/need to change the platform on which your site runs.

Don't make changes to your URL structure on a whim though. You need to take a careful look at both your internal and  inbound links and plan and redirections you need to put into place.

Remember that any change can be risky, so understand the risks and effort required before you start!