undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. What is better for SEO keywords in folder or in filename - also dupe filename question

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

What is better for SEO keywords in folder or in filename - also dupe filename question

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
10
5.2k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • irvingw
    irvingw last edited by May 15, 2012, 4:59 PM

    Hey folks,

    I've got a question regarding URL structure. What is best for SEO given that there will be millions of lawyer names and 4 pages per lawyer

    www.lawyerz.com/office-locations/dr-al-pacino

    www.lawyerz.com/phone-number/dr-al-pacino

    www.lawyerz.com/reviews/dr-al-pacino

    www.lawyerz.com/ratings/dr-al-pacino

    OR

    www.lawyerz.com/office-locations-dr-al-pacino

    www.lawyerz.com/phone-number-dr-al-pacino

    www.lawyerz.com/reviews-dr-al-pacino

    www.lawyerz.com/ratings-dr-al-pacino

    OR

    www.lawyerz.com/dr-al-pacino/office-locations

    www.lawyerz.com/dr-al-pacino/phone-number

    www.lawyerz.com/dr-al-pacino/reviews

    www.lawyerz.com/dr-al-pacino/ratings

    Also, concerning duplicate file names:

    In the first example there are 4 duplicate file names with the lawyers name. (would this cause Google to not index some)

    In the second example there are all unique file names (would this look spammy to Google or the user)

    In the third example there are millions of duplicate file names (if 1 million lawyers then 1 million files called "office-locations"  etc (could so many duplicate filenames cause ranking issues)

    Should the lawyers name (which is the main keyword target) appear in the filename or in the folder - which is better for SEO in your opinion? Thanks for your input!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • crimzen
      crimzen last edited by Jun 6, 2012, 10:14 PM Jun 6, 2012, 10:14 PM

      I like all of the answers here and I would definitely focus on how the user is searching for the lawyers.  If you have a site with millions of lawyers, they would each have an area of practice so it would make sense to develop a structure around this first:

      lawyerz.com/practice-area/state/city/attorney-name

      WIth this structure, a searcher that types in "estate planning lawyer" would be sent to the estate planning lawyers page and allowed to search further for their city and then lawyer names.  I would attach the contact info, reviews directly on that lawyer's page.

      Since your higher volume keywords are going be found within the "practice areas", this would seem the next step after the main domain target of "attorney" or "lawyers".  Then, location can come third, attorney name is most likely a lesser searched keyword but using a url structure such as "attorney-john-doe" reinforces.

      I would LOVE to hear all the expert opinions about this as I am a newbie to seomoz but am finding some great experts and advice over here.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlanBleiweiss
        AlanBleiweiss @irvingw last edited by May 16, 2012, 5:42 PM May 16, 2012, 5:42 PM

        while pages with such file names can be indexed, the long-term view dictates avoiding pages with filenames in the URL due to future potential conversion to other frameworks.  It makes a site less than ideal for portability.

        For example, if every page has index.php or whatever.asp and you change platform, you'll end up with every page needing a 301 redirect.  So it's better to avoid that whenever possible.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • itrogers
          itrogers @irvingw last edited by May 16, 2012, 1:42 PM May 16, 2012, 1:42 PM

          Although the filename will be duplicate, the content on those filenames will be okay. Google will look more at the content on the page rather than anything else. There are sites out there that have weird file structures, like:

          /index.php

          /services/index.php

          /products/index.php

          Some CMS's will automatically do this, but they rank fine because they have quality content, even though the index.php is technically a duplicate filename.

          You should be fine with this method.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • AlanBleiweiss
            AlanBleiweiss last edited by May 15, 2012, 8:19 PM May 15, 2012, 8:19 PM

            It's about users for sure.  The last set you show communicates "lawyer name" is more important/valuable.  Which is the valid perspective, since all of those elements relate to that lawyer. If some users still want to find lawyers based on reviews, you can offer a filter for that in your database sorting.  Same with locations.

            On the other side of the coin, instead of "locations", if you had town names, you could group by those so it would be /town-name/lawyer-name/   where all lawyers in the same town fall within that town-name grouping. If it's just /locations/ that's an invalid sort hierarchy.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • irvingw
              irvingw @irvingw last edited by May 15, 2012, 6:08 PM May 15, 2012, 6:08 PM

              yes navigation-wise this definitely makes the most sense

              www.lawyerz.com/dr-al-pacino/office-locations

              i guess what I am mostly looking for an answer about is which is better for rankings, the keyword in the folder or file name and if duplicate file names will harm rankings.

              thanks so much for your assistance guys.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • itrogers
                itrogers @irvingw last edited by May 15, 2012, 5:58 PM May 15, 2012, 5:58 PM

                Ok gotcha- well if that is the case, then think about how the user will navigate to the end result if they started from the home page. Logically, you could assume the following

                If URL structure is as follows:

                www.lawyerz.com/office-locations/dr-al-pacino

                then /office-locations/ should contain links to all office locations of multiple lawyers.

                But with this structure

                www.lawyerz.com/dr-al-pacino/office-locations

                /dr-al-pacino/ should contain links to the 4 other pages. **This option will probably be your best structure. **

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • goodlegaladvice
                  goodlegaladvice last edited by May 15, 2012, 5:54 PM May 15, 2012, 5:54 PM

                  If I am not mistaken it really depends on what users are searching

                  if they are only searching lawyers names than just find a structure that looks pretty and has the lawyer name in it.

                  But if there is any traffic data that points that people search the city or phone number along with the lawyer name than it might be wise to have that in the url structure

                  also ever thought of using subdomains? havent seen that in a lawyer directory yet but some of the major article sites switched to subdomains

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • irvingw
                    irvingw @itrogers last edited by May 15, 2012, 5:53 PM May 15, 2012, 5:53 PM

                    Assume there will be enough content on these pages to not get hit by panda.

                    The reason for doing this is to hopefully secure more than one first page result since these are names and very low competition, we see some sites doing this successfully.

                    We will have locations pages too which will list all the docs in that city

                    http://www.lawyerz.com/nevada/reno/personal-injury-lawyers

                    itrogers irvingw AlanBleiweiss 4 Replies Last reply May 16, 2012, 5:42 PM Reply Quote 0
                    • itrogers
                      itrogers last edited by Jul 10, 2012, 11:12 AM May 15, 2012, 5:39 PM

                      Is there any particular reason why office location, phone number, reviews, and ratings need to be on 4 separate pages? I could see there being a lot of thin content which won't really rank well or provide a ton of user value. Can you give some more info as to why this would be? I could easily see all 4 of these pages combined into one.

                      With that, you can focus your URL structure into categories or local regions or both, depending on how dynamic you want the site to be. For example:

                      http://www.lawyerz.com/nevada/personal-injury/dr-al-pacino

                      OR

                      http://www.lawyerz.com/personal-injury/dr-al-pacino

                      OR

                      http://www.lawyerz.com/nevada/dr-al-pacino

                      Unless there is something that I missing, I think no matter how you structure your URLs, thin content just won't rank.

                      irvingw 1 Reply Last reply May 15, 2012, 5:53 PM Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      1 out of 10
                      • First post
                        1/10
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • bedynamic

                        SEO on dynamic website

                        Hi. I am hoping you can advise. I have a client in one of my training groups and their site is a golf booking engine where all pages are dynamically created based on parameters used in their website search. They want to know what is the best thing to do for SEO. They have some landing pages that Google can see but there is only a small bit of text at the top and the rest of the page is dynamically created. I have advised that they should create landing pages for each of their locations and clubs and use canonicals to handle what Google indexes.Is this the right advice or should they noindex? Thanks S

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 26, 2018, 6:28 AM | bedynamic
                        0
                      • Magne_Vidnes

                        SEO implications of moving fra a sub-folder to a root domain

                        I am considering a restructure of my site, and was hoping for some input on SEO implications which I am having some issues getting clarity in. (I will be using sample domains/urls because of language reasons, not an english site), Thinking about moving a site (all content) from example.com/parenting -> parenting.com. This is to have a site fully devoted to this theme, and more easily monitor and improve SEO performance on this content alone. Today all stats on external links, DA etc is related to the root domain, and not just this sub-department. Plus it would be a better brand-experience of the content and site. Other info/issues: -The domain parenting.com (used as example) is currently redirected to example.com/parenting. So I would have to reverse that redirect, and would also redirect all articles to the new site. The current domain example.com has a high DA (67), but the new domain parenting.com has a much lower DA  (24). Question: Would the parenting.com domain improve it's DA when not redirected and the sub-folder on the high-DA domain is redirected here instead? Would it severly hurt SEO traffic to make this change, and if so is there a strategy to make the move with as little loss in traffic as possible? How much value is in having a stand-alone domain, which also is one of the most important keywords for this theme? My doubt comes mostly from moving from a domain with high DA to a domain with much lower DA, and I am not sure about how removing the redirect would change that, or if placing a new redirect from the subfolder on the current site would help improve it. Would some DA flow over with a 301 redirect? Thanks for any advice or hints to other documentation that might be of interest for this scenario 🙂

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 8, 2017, 7:46 AM | Magne_Vidnes
                        0
                      • viatrading1

                        Merging Pages and SEO

                        Hi, We are redesigning our website the following way: Before: Page A with Content A, Page B with Content B, Page C with Content C, etc
                        e.g. one page for each Customer Returns, Overstocks, Master Case, etc
                        Now: Page D with content A + B + C etc.
                        e.g. one long page containing all Product Conditions, one after the other So we are merging multiples pages into one.
                        What is the best way to do so, so we don't lose traffic? (or we lose the minimum possible) e.g. should we 301 Redirect A/B/C to D...?
                        Is it likely that we lose significant traffic with this change? Thank you,

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 2, 2016, 2:48 PM | viatrading1
                        0
                      • CarlosZambrana

                        SEO time

                        I wanto to be in the top of the google search. I am usiing a lot of SEO tools but... I have done it  during one month. Do I have to wait more?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 27, 2015, 5:47 AM | CarlosZambrana
                        0
                      • kashyaplakkad

                        What should I cover in a SEO proposal ?

                        What should I cover in a SEO proposal? Is there any sample SEO Proposal template in SEOMoz?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 21, 2013, 12:04 PM | kashyaplakkad
                        1
                      • AdeLewis

                        Is DOCTYPE important for SEO?

                        Hello fellow Mozzers. I am just having a brief look at a potential clients website before speaking to them tomorrow and whilst looking at the source I noticed that they don't appear to have a clear definition for their Doctype. All the have at the top of each page is I have to admit that Doctypes aren't my strong point but I know that they are normally slightly more descriptive than this. Can this have any effect on rankings? or is this just an issue for W3C validation? Thanks 🙂

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 12, 2011, 7:49 PM | AdeLewis
                        0
                      • MAGNUMCreative

                        Migrating online store to subdomain using shopify and effects on seo and energy down the road for seo

                        I'm looking for some clarity... Looking at using Shopify for an existing online store that we have to migrate. Setting up the store with shopify means we will be using a subdomain such as shop.mywebsite.com instead of mywebsite.com/shop. The following are points to consider when responding The client currently has an online store, however it's a proprietary shopping store and CMS that has since gone defunct and they need to migrate to an alternative in order to survive online against new CMS systems that allow the site and its content to be better optimized. There is a lot of existing SEO done on the current site that we don't want to loose PR on. There is roughly 2000 products Client has a fixed budget, dealing with checkout issues, custom work and various other "bugs" seems to be easier controlled with Shopify...thus budget can be used more on content/strategy and migration We want to run the main site in Wordpress and are wanting to use Shopify since it supports a gateway, has great features and seems like it would allow us to get more bang for the buck and can focus more on the main site and content strategy and drive traffic to the subdomain store if needed Or main concern is the effort of migrating 2000+ products to shopify and the traffic and PR it gives the current site will have a negative effect on the main domain itself. Should we really be considering this path? The domain is diveidc.com One main benefit to the subdomain is the ability to clearly segment products from the service portion of the site in the analytics and focus 2 clear strategies and track it in a very defined manner. We're really on the fence with this...any thoughts are welcome.

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 25, 2011, 3:33 PM | MAGNUMCreative
                        0
                      • scanlin

                        Does capitalization matter for SEO?

                        Two places capitalization comes into play: (1) on-page use (title, h1, body text, img alt text, etc) (2) external anchor text I didn't think it mattered from Google's point of view for on-page usage (is this correct?) but I notice that OpenSiteExplorer' s 'anchor text distribution' tab shows different counts for the same keyword if it's capitalized in different ways (eg seomoz.org is listed separate from SEOmoz.org). Is that just OSE or does Google treat the keyword/phrase different based on its capitalization, too? And if so, then should I be creating external links to my site with the 'regular' and 'Capitalized' versions of my key phrases?

                        Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 23, 2016, 9:30 PM | scanlin
                        1

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.