Exact Match Domain + shorter permalink vs. longer permalink?
-
So here's the scenario...
You own the exact match domain for "Acupuncture Intake Form" and want to create a page that targets the phrase, "Acupuncture Intake Form Template"...
In terms of SEO, which of the following permalinks does a better job targeting the term "Acupuncture Intake Form Template" :
A) www.acupunctureintakeform.com/template/
B) www.acupunctureintakeform.com/acupuncture-intake-form-template/
From a user-friendliness perspective, I can definitely see why the /template/ is more ideal. It's more memorable, easier to link to, and logical.
I'm just wondering whether there is some edge that the /acupuncture-intake-form-template/ has that I'm not aware of, or if there's some gray area.
I can also think of scenarios where the longer version might be better. For example, if there were several different kinds of acupuncture intake form templates. If that were the case, then /template/ might be too vague (e.g. is it the normal "acupuncture intake form template" or is it the "acupuncture intake form template with diagram"). So in that respect, the longer one might be less concise in certain situations, but in others provide more clarity.
(Note: I'm looking for answers to this situation as it applies to any website. I just chose this extremely small niche exact match domain because it's an example that illustrate my questions).
Thanks in advance for any answers, insights, or comments! I'm not sure if there's a specific answer, but I'm sure there are some key points to discuss.
Michael
-
Rebekah, Igor, and Greg - thanks for the helpful (and quick!) responses, I appreciate it.
-
www.acupunctureintakeform.com/template/ is a much better idea.
There will be no benefit in terms of SEO for you to repeat the keyword in the URL
As for the future pages, you could always do the following
www.acupunctureintakeform.com/template/
www.acupunctureintakeform.com/template-with-diagrame/
www.acupunctureintakeform.com/template-with-pictures/
etc
Hope that helps.
Greg
-
Hello Michael,
In my opinion since you already have an exact match domain and making your URL to the template as www.acupunctureintakeform.com/acupuncture-intake-form-template/
is kind of redundant, long, doesn't look that good, and might look like you're trying to manipulate rankings by doing keyword stuffing.
I would recommend something like:
www.acupunctureintakeform.com/template-forms
www.acupunctureintakeform.com/templates
etc..
I think its better to concentrate on the ON PAGE SEO, its far more important to have good content that will lure in visitors and make them link and share you content VS getting a headache from worrying about the URL address. Obviously I'm not talking about completely ignoring it and putting your template under something like /contact us/ section. Just make it easy and straight to the point, I think that is the best way to do it. In my case I tend to over think things which is not a good thing, so lately I go with the first idea that comes to me that looks and sounds simple!
-
I personally think it would be best to use /template. Or in the case of specific templates, shorten the full phrase to /intake-template/ and then take advantage of the Title tag, H1s and other on-page content to target the keywords you are looking for. With the second scenario you are relying too much on the URL for your keywords and this may send a spammy signal - especially if combined with other optimization efforts.
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
-
Fundamental things to concentrate on for Domain Authority
I'm looking for the fundamental things to concentrate on when trying to improve my Domain Authority as it is's poor for my area and I want our business to compete with other businesses in our county. We're an automotive company www.chorleygroup.co.uk - we need to compete with other automotive companies in our areas.
On-Page Optimization | | CGroup1230 -
Separate URL vs iFrame
Hi Everyone, I'm not a designer/developer and am an not extremely knowledgeable in SEO, but I'll try to be as clear as I can. One of the designers here is creating a recipe section on our website. He created it so that it's a container (or iFrame?) on the page. Basically, no matter what you click (different sections and recipes) the URL stays the same. I was told to find out from an SEO perspective if it's better to do things this way or have a separate URL for each section and recipe. It's been brought up that from a social/sharing standpoint separate URLs would be better so people can send a link directly to the specific recipe they want to share. Any thoughts/comments are appreciated! Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | AliMac260 -
Keyword in Domain AND Title. Yes or No?
We're working on a new buildout, and this one is really important to us. We've put a lot of resources into it. Before we launch, we want the structure to be just right... and this one question is nagging at me. How to structure urls? Consider these two options. The fictitious domain is "icesurfing.org". Including all 50 states in the keyword, there are nearly one million searches per month for "ice surfing [state]". We have a page for each state to focus on this traffic. But how would you structure the urls and titles? **icesurfing.org/state ** icesurfing.org/ice-surfing-state One concern is that the duplicate keywords in option 2 seem redundant, and a little spammy. When presented with google search, the matching tags are not as clean. Texas - IceSurfing.org Ice Surfing Texas - IceSurfing.org But Yoast automatically suggests option 2. Is this really the best practice? Is there are definitive article on this? THANK YOU!
On-Page Optimization | | RetBit0 -
One Main Brand Domain - One EMD which Ranks Better
Hello SEO MOZers! We have one one main ecommerce site and I have just discovered we have an EMD sitting on a .co.uk, for one of our premium product ranges, and it actually outranks our main website. It appears on page one. My question is how do I handle the EMD? I don't want to start building authority to this site, as we are currently developing the main brand site, however I can't ignore that it is ranking. There is relatively little content. There are links on the page (it's only one page) that go through to the product section on the main site. But should I 301 redirect it? What would be your advise? I want to capitalise on any traffic we could benefit from, and ultimately I want the main site to rank better for this product's keywords. Any help would much appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | CarlaAction1 -
Microsoft SEO Toolkit vs MoZ
Hi MoZ Community, Does anybody know how well is Microsoft SEO Toolkit. As far i have noticed this tool reports around 20 violations under three broad areas like : SEO, Content and Performance. On many violations I have found MoZ to be silent like : 1-unnecessary redirects 2-Invalid mark ups 3-Missing Tag 4-like vilations and others Important is that it tells solutions as well against each violation on how to fix that. Any body can give insights while comparing it with MoZ. Tanveer
On-Page Optimization | | Sequelmed0 -
Domain Authority vs. Page Authority?
I have a couple of questions about this. First of all is one more important than the other? Also, I currently have a website setup for www.domain.com, should I try to change that to domain.com without the www? How is it possible to grow page authority yet I am having a hard time growing domain authority.
On-Page Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Static content VS Dynamic changing content
We have collected a lot of reviews and we want to use them on our Categories pages. We are going to be updating the top 6 reviews per categories every 4 days. There will be another page to see all of the reviews. Is there any advantage to have the reviews static for 1 or 2 weeks vs. having unique new ones pulled from the data base every time the page is refreshed? We know there is an advantage if we keep them on the page forever with long tail; however, we have created a new page with all of the reviews they can go to.
On-Page Optimization | | DoRM0 -
Google VS Yahoo VS Bing & Onpage Optimization in 2011
I was just wondering if someone could point out to me any known differences between these three search engines. I feel like i have been spending a lot of time optimizing for google, but don't have much of an idea of how to optimize for yahoo or bing. Do you have any up-to date article links or tips/advice?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0