Change your URLs or domain to rank higher? It's rarely worth it

Every so often a proposal lands that sounds logical: "Let's change every page address to include the words people search for," or "Let's buy a domain that says exactly what you sell." The idea is that Google will rank you higher.

Before you say yes, it's worth knowing what Google itself says about it. And the answer came in October 2026, from Gary Illyes on Google's Search team.

On October 14, 2026, Google published the first episode of "The Non-Canonical Cabinet," a Search Central video series about unusual technical questions. According to Search Engine Journal's coverage, Google's Gary Illyes called keywords in a URL "an incredibly small signal."

A URL is a page's address, the thing you see in your browser bar. Illyes explained that those words only matter when Google has absolutely nothing else to go on, like a brand-new site with no content. Once Google sees the content, keywords in the domain and URL become, in his words, "basically irrelevant."

He also recommended hyphens (-) rather than underscores (_) to separate words, because Google reads words joined by underscores as one long word. Search Engine Roundtable adds that Illyes pointed out Google can detect spam in URLs.

Changing every URL on a site, or moving it to a new domain, is a lot like moving a business to a new location. Every page has an address, and that address is already stored in Google, in links from other sites, in emails, in ads, and in your customers' bookmarks.

When the move goes badly, the problems show up: broken links that lead to error pages, botched redirects (a redirect is the automatic forwarding from the old address to the new one), and a drop in traffic that can take a while to recover.

Google's own guide to site moves is clear about it: during a move, rankings normally fluctuate while Google recrawls the site, and for a medium-sized site it can take a few weeks or more for Google to start showing the new addresses instead of the old ones. Larger sites take longer.

In other words, you take on real risk in exchange for a signal that, according to Google, weighs almost nothing.

When someone pitches a change like this, the useful question isn't technical. It's this: what customer problem does this change solve?

If the answer is "none, but we'll rank higher," be skeptical. What actually makes the difference is useful content that answers what your customers ask, and a stable site that works well and doesn't change addresses every year. If you want to know how to judge pitches like this, we cover how to decide what SEO to buy and how to measure it.

There are cases where changing addresses is the right call, because it responds to something real in the business or for the customer:

• Your business or catalog structure changed. If you no longer sell the same things, or you reorganized your categories, old addresses can confuse more than they help.
• The URLs are unreadable for people. Addresses full of numbers, symbols, and parameters (the parts after a "?") that nobody understands or can share.
• You need to consolidate domains. For example, your brand is spread across several sites and it makes sense to bring it into one.
• A platform change is unavoidable. If your current system has hit its limit and you have to switch, addresses sometimes change by necessity.

• When the only reason is to get keywords into the address.
• When someone offers you an "exact-match" domain as a shortcut to rank.
• When the site works, the pages make sense, and nobody is complaining about the addresses.

If the change is justified, it's done with method. Google's site move guide recommends mapping every old address to its new one, using permanent server-side redirects (such as 301 or 308), not sending lots of old pages to a single unrelated page like the home page, and keeping redirects in place as long as possible, generally at least one year.

And before you move anything, measure. Google Search Console, Google's free tool for seeing how your site shows up in search, lets you take a "before" snapshot: which pages get visits from Google and for which searches. After the change, compare against that snapshot. Without a before and after, there's no way to know whether the move went well.

It's the same logic as an operation that can change without breaking: purposeful changes, one at a time, and measured.

Do keywords in URLs help you rank on Google?

Very little. Google's Gary Illyes called them "an incredibly small signal" that only counts when Google has nothing else; once it sees the content, they become basically irrelevant.

Should I use hyphens or underscores in URLs?

Hyphens. Google reads words joined by underscores as one long word and recommends the hyphen as the separator.

Is it worth buying a keyword-rich domain?

Rarely, as a way to rank higher. Keywords in the domain carry very little weight once there's content, and moving your site carries real risks.

What are the risks of changing my site's URLs?

Broken links, botched redirects, and ranking fluctuations while Google recrawls the site. According to Google, a medium-sized site can take a few weeks or more for the new addresses to show up.

If I have to migrate, what should I ask for?

A permanent (301) redirect map from every old address to its new one, redirects kept active for at least a year, and a before-and-after measurement in Search Console.

At Somos Gente Digital, we'll tell you honestly when a change is worth it and when it isn't. If it doesn't solve anything for your customers, we'll say so, even when selling the project would be easier. And if a migration really is needed, we plan it with you and stay with you through the process, with people close to you and a clear method.

If someone offered to change your URLs or domain and you'd like a second opinion, reach out through our contact page.