URL structure
-
Hi,
I am in the process of having a site created which will focus on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and PS3 Vita.
I would appreciate some advice when it comes to the URL structure. Each category mentioned above will have the following subsections
News
Reviews
Screenshots
TrailersWould the best url structure be?
www.domain.com/xbox-360/news/news-story-headline
www.domain.com/ps3/reviews/ps3-game-nameThanks in advance for your help and suggestions.
-
The timestamp is totally up to you if you think your URL:s will look better without them.
However Google tends to give pages with clear indications of when the information was published a little boosts. And they do mention that freshness is key for content.
So the timestamp is important but I'm guessing that you'll have a timestamp in the article with the standard WP config anyhow so it's really not that essential in the URL. But If you have many articles it can be good to have a time indicator in them, if only for your own use.
To give yo a better example of how the permalink settings could look in WP:
/%category%/%postname%/
If you do it this way you won't have a timestamp in the URL.
* Remember that WP will use only one category in the permalinks so I reccomend you to only have one category for the URL.
Both way works, just choose one and remember that you need to stick to the one you choose so that the inbound links don't loose effect.
best, G
-
Thanks Gustav. Do I really need the timestamp? (However I am looking to get listed on Google News in the future)
I was thinking of the following structure:-
ps3/ps3-reviews/game-name-review
xbox-360/xbox-360-reviews/game-name-review -
That's correct
- otherwise it would be seen as duplicated content.
But that doesn't create any problems for you.
Just set the structure to:
Maincategory/subcategory/nichecategory/timestamp/article
EG:
For Xbox:
Reviews/xbox-360/timestamp/game-review-name
FOr PS3:
Reviews/Ps3/timestamp/game-review-name
This should work fine
Best, G
-
Thanks for the kind words, both.
It appears that with Wordpress each category (even sub categories) cannot have the same name so for example, "reviews" can only be used once and cannot be used within /xbox-360/reviews/game-review-name and ps3/reviews/game-review-name
Is that correct?
-
Great thoughts, but I would just like to add another: you may want to keep all subfolders in lowercase. This could prevent headaches later on if URL characters have a mixture of cases.
-
Nice thread!
As Marcus mentioned, it's good to have cross platform category, there is however another way
You could:
Instead of using cross platform as a category, simply use rel canonical.
In WP this is simple you just choose the categories eg: Xbox360, PS3 and Wii and then choose which one that you want as a main indexed article with a rel canonical tag.
Best
Nice work on the site!
-
Yep, I guess, but to play devils advocate here, what if it is a cross platform review?
You could review on one platform, make that the main one and then have the same content on other URLS that have a canonical pointing to the main review.
Alternatively, you could have another category
/cp/ - cross platform
Then you could have:
www.totallygn.com/cp/reviews/fifa12-review
And the review could be listed under all categories from a browsing perspective and just have a caveat that the version reviewed was for PS3.
Either way, this is not going to skyrocket your SEO, but your current URLs are a bit on the long side (standard wordpress set up?).
Just try to choose something that makes for a good, readable, descriptive URL that is not too long and you will be okay.
Oh, and make sure you 301 all the old page addresses else you will run into bigger problems. In fact, take a look at this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
It gives you loads of 301 options from within wordpress but more importantly, it creates automatic 301 redirects when a posts address changes so it will do most of the heavy lifting for you. It also logs all 404's so you can see any changes you didnt make and add the relevant rules.
You are doing a lot right though: Wordpress is a great base and your site has tons of great content so so keep at it!
Marcus
-
Thanks Marcus. The site currently exists at www.totallygn.com but is not very SEO friendly as you can see.
With regards to what you said above. If we were to review FIFA 12 for the PS3 would your url be
www.totallygn.com/ps3/reviews/fifa12-review ?
Thanks again,
Neil
-
Hey, sounds interesting, I am a UK gamer so you will have to let me have a link!
Really, this should be a common sense, usability driven decision so the way you have listed it above seems to work for me.
The main categories are the consoles themselves so
/xbox/
/ps3/
/wii/
/vita/These then all break down into your four categories so
/xbox/News
/xbox/Reviews
/xbox/Screenshots
/xbox/Trailers/ps3/News
/ps3/Reviews
/ps3/Screenshots
/ps3/TrailersThis gives you plenty of flexibility to add new root categories, children categories etc and it gets your keywords in your URL if that is your SEO goal here. Ultimately, it makes for a nice, descriptive URL as well.
Good luck with the site!
Marcus
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What to do with existing URL when replatforming and new URL is the same?
We are changing CMS from WordPress to Uberflip. If there is a URL that remains the same I believe we should not create a redirect. However, what happens to the old page? Should it be deleted?
Technical SEO | | maland0 -
After you remove a 301 redirect that Google has processed, will the new URL retain any of the link equity from the old URL?
Lets say you 301 redirect URL A to URL B, and URL A has some backlinks from other sites. Say you left the 301 redirect in place for a year, and Google had already replaced the old URL with the new URL in the SERPs, would the new URL (B) retain some of the link equity from URL A after the 301 redirect was removed, or does the redirect have to remain in place forever?
Technical SEO | | johnwalkersmith0 -
URL Structure On Site - Currently it's domain/product-name NOT domain/category/product name is this bad?
I have a eCommerce site and the site structure is domain/product-name rather than domain/product-category/product-name Do you think this will have a negative impact SEO Wise? I have seen that some of my individual product pages do get better rankings than my categories.
Technical SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
Use hreflang for language and regional URLs
I have implemented hreflang on site, seen here http://www.cobaltrecruitment.com/ but Webmaster Tools is returning loads of errors in the international targeting area..... "'“en-sg"' - unknown language code" and "'“en-ar"' - unknown language code" Can anyone suggest what I need to tell my developers to do? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
How could you make a URL/Breadcrumb structure appear different in Google than when you click into site?
I'm seeing a competitor be able to make their URL/Breadcrumb stucture appear different in Google than on the site. Google shows a 3-4 category silo for the page but once clicked the page is off root. How could you do this?
Technical SEO | | TicketCity0 -
Spaces (actual spaces) in URL
Hi all, Is there a huge loss of SEO performance if a URL shows spaces with an actual space (i.e. %20) in the URL rather than a "-" (or indeed a "_")? I know the preferred option is to have a "-", but I am just wondering if it is worth our effort to manually change the "%20" to a "-" in all the instances? Thanks 🙂 Diana
Technical SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0 -
Structured Data Authorship
Hi I've just successfully set up authorship for a client according to the rich snippet testing tool although bit perplexed since underneath the results theres a section called 'Extracted Structured Data'. The first section is marked hatom feed and under that it says under the field saying 'Author' it says in red: Warning: At least one field must be set for Hcard.Warning: Missing required field "name (fn)".And then under the URL field & the URL it says:Warning: Missing required field "entry-title".Any ideas what this means or even if its important ? I would have thought the tool wouldnt acknowledge authorship as being set up correctly if this was an issue but that does beg the question what is it doing there and what does it mean ?Theres another section after that called rdfa node which seems all fineAlso says page does not contain publisher mark up although i know publisher has been added to the home page, is it best to add publisher to head section in every page (as i have heard some people say) or just the home page ?Many ThanksDan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
No Keyword in URL
SEOMoz (and other platforms) advise that I need to add my keyword to the page URL, however as far as I'm concerned it has been, so why don't these platforms see it. My home page URL is www.salesandinternetmarketing.com, but apparently I haven't added the keyword internet marketing to the URL, what advice can you give me please? Lindsay
Technical SEO | | lindsayjhopkins1