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Does a question mark in the URL affect your ranking?

By
Mortgage and Lending with Social Media - Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc

question markWell, I am not the best when it comes to computers and how blogging works 100%. But I was doing some searching on the internet and found out an interesting fact to share with you. But after reading some of these articles, it seems that this is still an ongoing study.

How many of you even knew that adding a question mark (?) at the end of your title could get you a lower ranking. Long ago, this was a consensus in the search engine industry.

Currently it seems that the search engine industry consensus is that Googles indexes URLs just fine and ranks them along with other URLs.  But WAIT...unless there is a long number after the question mark or an "id=" in it which might indicate a session ID.

This study goes on to say that Google and Yahoo! do include some URls with question marks. It then says that Google has a little more than Yahoo! The average percentage of URLs with question marks is only about 5% on Google and 3% on Yahoo!. With this data, it states that Google does rank dynamic URLs lower with the question mark.

The conclusion from this study states that you shouldn't use dynamic URLs with question marks in them. And here is a short article on this information. Does a question mark in the URL affect ranking?

Overall, I would love to hear from Mary McKnight and others that know more about this and the affects of the QUESTION MARK.  (?)

 Now, keeping in mind that these were published theories and studies done a few years ago. I couldn't find any updated info. So for those tech savy people on here, please fill us in. But I found this to be interesting, as I learn what to do and what not to do.

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Copyright © 2011 by Jeff Belonger of Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc

Mary McKnight
Sacrilicious Marketing - Orlando, FL

Thanks for the shout out! 

A"?" at the end of a URL is an indicator that there are perameters to follow.  It is generally not advised to pass perameters that way.  Also, using perameters isn't terribly search engine friendly.  You should use a URL re-writer to make your URLs more friendly to search engines if you are using perameters.  URLs with peramters get indexed by search engines at a substantially lower rate than non peramter URLs. 

So, the basic answer is, a URL with a "?" is not a good idea.

Oct 12, 2006 01:46 AM
Jeff Belonger
Social Media - Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc - Cherry Hill, NJ
The FHA Expert - FHA Loans - FHA mortgages - USDA loans - VA Loans

Just a comment from ME.... lol  I know this is not a glorified blog, funny, and extremely interesting... but I did think it was something know about.

Mary..... thanks for the comment. If everyone doesn't know, Mary is a professional in the web design & blogging industry. Glad to know I wasn't pulling rabbits out of a hat.

Oct 12, 2006 03:05 AM
Matt Heaton
Timu Corp - CEO, ActiveRain - Co-founder - Bothell, WA

In my experiences there is no doubt have parameters in a URL can have a big effect on rankings.  But a lot probably depends on the situation, and number of parameters.  For the most part we used routing on this site to not use many parameters but there are a few pages where they got used and I'm apprehensive to make a major change when we're doing pretty well in Google.

Oct 12, 2006 04:37 AM
Jeff Belonger
Social Media - Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc - Cherry Hill, NJ
The FHA Expert - FHA Loans - FHA mortgages - USDA loans - VA Loans

Matt.....wow....MAtt from Active Rain has stopped in.... seriously, thanks for stopping by and for the information.

Overall...I know this wasn't an exciting informational blog...  nor funny...  but I thought it might have added a little insight to how blogging works. Instead of general facts, I thought I would do one on something specific. Unless everyone on here knew about this....lol

 

Oct 12, 2006 08:37 AM
Robert D. Ashby
Cruise Planners of South Florida - Plantation, FL
Providing Personalized Travel

Great info and thanks for the input Mary and Matt.  I always wondered if the ? was good or bad.  I never got a straight answer from anybody.

If its working for AR, I am not going to complain.

Oct 12, 2006 10:16 AM
Rick & Ines - Miami Beach Real Estate
Majestic Properties - Miami Beach, FL

Thanks for doing the research, I would have never known.........no more question marks on my titles!  How about exclamation marks?

ines

Oct 12, 2006 12:03 PM
Jim Quinn
Quinn Appraisals - Bridgeton, NJ
I guess I should start writing some?  whoops... no ???? marks  I am still learning all of this before I jump out there.  thanks
Oct 12, 2006 12:48 PM
Jeff Belonger
Assured Lending Corporation - Philadelphia, PA

Robert..... I agree and thanks for the hello.

Rick & Ines...... my pleasure....thanks for stopping by. I actually just stumbled over the info when I was searching for something for another log....  lol  And said.... let me read up on and then write something quick. I am not a tech guy or an info guy when it comes to stuff like this. My expertise is mortgages, making people happy, and making dreams happen.

Jim...... I am still learning also....jump in...

Oct 12, 2006 12:57 PM
Rick & Ines - Miami Beach Real Estate
Majestic Properties - Miami Beach, FL

Hey Jeff..........you should think about removing the question mark at the end of your title..........it could affect your rankings.

:)     ines

Oct 12, 2006 01:08 PM
Jeff Belonger
Social Media - Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc - Cherry Hill, NJ
The FHA Expert - FHA Loans - FHA mortgages - USDA loans - VA Loans
Rick & Ines.....  LOL  thanks for the heads up.... how funny. What's the saying in regards to this?  Practice what you preach?  
Oct 12, 2006 01:12 PM
Jeff Belonger
Social Media - Infinity Home Mortgage Company, Inc - Cherry Hill, NJ
The FHA Expert - FHA Loans - FHA mortgages - USDA loans - VA Loans
Hey all- titles and urls are two different animals.  Question marks in titles are fine- as in the title of this post-- question marks in URLs (meaning the stuff the scripts spit out) not so fine.
Oct 13, 2006 02:44 AM
Rick & Ines - Miami Beach Real Estate
Majestic Properties - Miami Beach, FL

Oh man........so now I have to go back and put all the question marks back!

ines

Oct 13, 2006 01:21 PM