Should You Remove Stop Words from URLs?

Is it necessary to pay attention to stop words in URLs? Here are some best practices for how to handle stop words.

Video Transcript

David: Okay. So, Janel, you were asking about stop words and permalinks. Do you recall your question? Do you want me to read it?

Janel: Oh, I have it. Yes. I was writing a list of tips for a client whose blog has just gotten out of control, and I knew that it was a good practice to avoid stop words, just to keep the permalinks shorter. I found this link that had a list of hundreds of stop words, and I didn’t even realize that these were considered stop words, like “best.” I mean, “best” is in everything. “Best list of 25 things.” It’s everywhere. So, is this something that I should pay attention to besides the typical stop words, like of, and, the, a, etc.? 

David: Yeah. So, what is the problem you’re solving when you say the client is out of control in their blog?

Janel: They have many categories, and their post titles are very long, unnecessarily long. And so, they’re permalinks because they haven’t been customizing them. So, I’m trying to advise them on best practices for permalinks. I know that I can do that easily, but I also want to advise them to say, “Hey, you can remove these lists of stop words,” but I don’t want to overwhelm them because the list that I found online is extensive.

David: Yeah.

Janel: And not even something that I would have thought would have been a stop word.

David: Right. Right. Okay, so stop words. Great. I mean, this is a good question, but it’s also one of those really minor things. So, I think you’re solving a problem, which is a good problem to solve, but I don’t know if stop words really solve it. Right? Because I will say, Yoast will strip stop words from URLs if you allow it. It used to be a default feature, maybe a paid feature. I turned it off because I don’t like it, and what it ends up doing is making URLs that really are nonsensical and confusing. And I kind of fear a day when it removes a stop word that changes the meaning of the URL. Like a word like “not.” Right? You remove that from the URL, and it sounds like you’re saying something totally different than you are, you know? But you’re right about your truncating. I have a client who used to be a newspaperman, and he just writes these really long headlines because he has the space. It’s not that he wants to write a long headline. It allows him to write a long headline, and he fills the space like a newspaper reporter might. Oh, I’m going to fill the space. So, I think maybe it would be easier if you said, “Keep your headlines less than six words.”

Janel: But that’s just the headline. That’s not even the permalink.

David: Right. However, in WordPress, the permalink is based on the headline.

Janel: True.

David: Right. And so, if you just say six-word headlines, it will make your life a lot easier. Say everything you want to in the blog post, but tease with the six-word headline. Six words are not magic. It could be eight. But the point is to keep it concise.

Janel: Yeah.

David: And if you give them something to aim for, it becomes concise, and then their permalinks will get more in order. I think the other way of approaching it is to say, “Hey, look at this particular blog post. If I tried to tell someone to visit this blog post, try to say the URL out loud.” Best practices of the most awesome type of widgets that you could buy considered. Right. Really? So, I think that’s a better guideline because keywords or words in the URL aren’t that big of a deal. But also, I worry that stop words might be a little bit of an obsolete idea because Google is much better about the semantical nature of words than it used to be. So, it knows. There was an update in Google a few years ago. I forget what they called it, but the idea is it did a better job of understanding what you mean, not just looking at the little words. So, when you put “not” in a phrase, it understands that “not” means the negative of what you’re about to say. So, if “not” might be a stop word, you might change the meaning of what it is to Google. For those reasons, I’m hesitant to remove stop words from URLs. Number one, I’m worried that somebody will say something that either looks really bad or totally contradicts. And two, I don’t think Google really cares. I think the better advice is to say, let’s limit it to eight or six words.

Janel: Yeah, I think that “Does it make sense” also provides good guidance. I mean, one of their shorter titles is “Gathering and Transferring Your Digital Materials in One Place.” So, the permalink itself could easily be shortened, but it would still make sense.

David: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think in Curious Ants, there are some guidelines for good title tags.

Janel: Okay.

David: And that might help them, too, because we want to think evergreen. I guess this is an evergreen topic, the one you gave. But I guess maybe what I’m saying, and I think I say this in the guidelines for title tags, is the title tag is typically the headline, which typically becomes your URL. So that’s why that’s a good thing. But social media headlines and SEO headlines are sometimes very different.

Janel: Yeah.

David: And so, if you’re used to writing for social media, you might want to write for the shock, the click. Mind you, Stephanie’s probably cringing when she hears me say this because that’s an overbroad statement. Right? And it’s not completely true. But when we do SEO, we want to be direct and clear, and we want less flamboyance. We just want to go straight up: What am I going to find when I read this article? Right? And so, by limiting it to six words, I think you’ll help your client end up accomplishing that. And then you don’t have to explain something like stop words or worry about which stop words list is right. Or, God forbid, turn on an automated system that modifies it.

Janel: Yeah, I don’t want to do that.

David: There’s an example I found this week. I have a client that does service on in-line valves in your industrial machinery. And so, the page is about in-line valves. Yoast removed the stop word “in.” So, it’s “line” in the URL.

Janel: Oh, gosh. But isn’t it, wouldn’t in-line be one word?

David: No, they did it as two. They’re engineers. They’re terrible spellers. Maybe that’s wrong. Right? But the point is, now the URL says something like “line valves.” And a line valve isn’t a thing. There’s no such thing as a line valve. So, by removing the stop word, they ended up… Now, am I going through and changing it? No, it doesn’t even matter that much. Right? But that’s why “stop words” is kind of a misnomer.

Janel: Yeah.

David: Okay. Does that help?

Janel: Yes.

Stephanie: I just put a headline analyzer in the chat.

Janel: Thank you.

Stephanie: I use that a lot. I would aim for a score of 70 in that analyzer when you start using it. And I’ve seen pretty good success with that, being good across the board for both social media and SEO practice.

Janel: Is this something that you would do, just use yourself, or do you share this with clients?

Stephanie: When I share with clients, I give them the final piece, which has the headline, the copy, and everything. But I do share that score with them when I make a suggestion.

Janel: Right. But you’re not sharing the tool.

Stephanie: I say suggested headline, and then I say headline, score with the parentheses; let’s aim for 70. And sometimes, I send them scores that are, like, 68, 69. But if we’re close enough to 70, then I can say I feel good about this.

Janel: That’s great. Thank you. I’ll check it out.