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I'm trying to make my site as SEO optimized as possible and have a question.

Do I change the name of my "cart.php" and "checkout.php" pages to have keywords in them?

For example, here's the current names of all my pages:

  • index.php
  • about-me.php
  • portfolio.php
  • news.php
  • store.php
  • item-details.php
  • cart.php
  • checkout.php
  • terms-and-conditions.php

Let's say that my name is Bob Doe and what I'm trying to sell is paintings.

Here is what I plan on renaming them to.

  • index.php
  • about-me.php -> about-bob-doe.php
  • portfolio.php -> portfolio-bob-doe.php
  • news.php -> news-bob-doe.php
  • store.php -> store-buy-paintings.php
  • item-details.php -> store-painting-info.php
  • cart.php -> Should I rename this?
  • checkout.php -> Should I rename this?
  • terms-and-conditions.php

Am I doing the right thing here?

Should I be renaming my pages? Will renaming "cart" and "checkout" make a difference?

Stephen Ostermiller
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Katie
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    Where did you get the idea that this would help SEO these days? – Stephen Ostermiller Jan 23 '17 at 20:34
  • @StephenOstermiller idk, I thought google takes the urls into consideration. Is this not the case anymore? – Katie Jan 23 '17 at 20:38
  • I got the idea from guides like this (page 8-9): http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf – Katie Jan 23 '17 at 20:51
  • That guide is copyright 2010 at the bottom. You should find newer sources for SEO advice. – Stephen Ostermiller Jan 23 '17 at 21:04
  • @StephenOstermiller good point! Where's a good resource for the latest SEO advice? – Katie Jan 23 '17 at 21:09
  • That guide is reasonably sound IMO. However, neither does it suggest that a URL of the form about-bod-doe.php would necessarily be any better than a URL like about-me.php? There is also an inherent (SEO) risk with changing a URL structure. – MrWhite Jan 23 '17 at 21:19
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    That guide doesn't actually look too bad having looked closer. It doesn't actually say to stuff keywords into URLs. It says "Use words in URLs" and "avoid using excessive keyword". Your URLs already had good words for SEO and you are proposing stuffing keywords in them. – Stephen Ostermiller Jan 23 '17 at 21:19
  • @StephenOstermiller Kk I'll go with the more human readable options instead of keywords. Thanks for the advice! – Katie Jan 23 '17 at 22:22

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