Google's John Mueller said on Twitter "the SEO effect of keywords in the URL is minimal once the content is indexed." Google has said keywords in URLs are a small factor and not to worry about it because it is an overrated SEO factor.
But if I go ahead and read into every word John wrote in that tweet, maybe - just maybe - the keywords in the URL matter a lot more if Google has yet to index the content on that page. I assume by the time they pick up on your URL, it won't be too long before Google does index the content on the page. But if you block Google from indexing the content on the page, maybe the keywords in the URL are much more important. Keep in mind, I bet it isn't super easy to rank a page highly when that page's content cannot be indexed by Google. So this is all theoretical anyway.
Here is John's tweet:
The SEO effect of keywords in the URL is minimal once the content is indexed. Make URLs that work for your users, not for SEO. Also, changing URLs on an existing site is a site-migration & it will take time/fluctuations to be reprocessed, so I'd avoid that unless it's critical.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 19, 2020
So a few things here:
(1) Keywords in URLs are minimal in terms of SEO
(2) Don't worry about how the URLs work for SEO, do them for users
(3) Try to avoid changing URLs if possible.
And for a fourth tidbit, English URLs do not have an advantage over French URLs for SEO.
French URLs are fine; there's no SEO advantage from using English URLs.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 19, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter.
