Which is the better taxonomy?
-
Which of these is the better taxonomy?
-
Hi, keywords located in the file path or file name of a document will appear bolded in search results. This bolded appearance is what can affect your CTR. A higher CTR will provide higher authority which is a signal that affects organic rank. It also depends on the keyword you're targeting. If your keyword is "hr outsourcing solutions" and you are also targeting "hr outsourcing" then the latter makes more sense in terms of taxonomy. In a world of Penguin updates I would avoid the former in case your audience pulls in the URL as your anchor text frequently. The double use of your target phrase in the URL would then also "over optimize" your anchor text signals and may get a Penguin penalty.
-
Irving:
Is there anything wrong with www.mysite.com/hr-outsourcing/hr-outsourcing-solutions from a ranking perspective?
From my point of view, it's easier to keep things organized.
And Mysite.com/hr-outsourcing and mysite.com.hr-outsourcing/hr-outsourcing-solutions are separate pages with the long-tail reinforcing the parent in the Silo.
-
a lot of people aren't aware of that. yea
www.mysite.com/hr-outsourcing-solutions is better than www.mysite.com/hr-outsourcing because it includes longtail, could be two separate pages even, with long tail versions pointing to the main www.mysite.com/hr-outsourcing parent page to make it stronger
by filename i mean whatever is the page name, www.mysite.com/page-name
but yes it applies to image files as well for instance
www.mysite.com/zombie-pics/image-123.jpg no SEO benefit for the image
www.mysite.com/zombie-pics/walking-dead-zombie-girl.jpg good for SEO (use in conjunctiomn with alt tags)
-
Irving,
When you refer to "filenames", are you talking about .jpg .png .pdf or could it be the last /whatever of the url?
Thanks for the information!
-
Wow! I did not know that folders don't push rank. So if my keyword is "hr outsourcing", does www.mysite.com/hr-outsourcing-solutions push rank?Can I assume that it does?
-
what is your keyword phrase for this page? if it is "hr outsourcing solutions" then neither example is best. this is best:
www.mysite.com/anything-can-go-here/hr-outsourcing-solutions
keywords in folder names DO NOT push rank, keywords in filenames do
good luck - Irving
-
Hey CsmBill,
I would say the 2nd option is better because it is easier for visitors. Even if your keyword was "hr outsourcing solutions" the SEO impact of your url have been decreasing, to my knowledge. Especially when the url starts getting longer and longer because of it.
Remember, Google wants things easier for searchers and if the url structure is something easy and makes sense structure-wise, then it will look favorable.
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
-
Archive pages structure using a unique hierarchical taxonomy, could be good for SEO?
Hi, Preamble:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danielecelsa
We are creating a website where people look for professionals for some home working. We want to create a homepage with a search bar where people write the profession/category (actually it is a custom taxonomy) that they need, like ‘plumbers’, and a dropdown/checkbox filter where they can choose the city where they need the plumber.
The result page is a list of plumber agencies in the city chosen. Each agency is a Custom Post Type for us. Furthermore, we are hardly working to make our SEO ranking as high as possible.
So, for example, we know that it is important to have a well-done Archive Page for each Taxonomy term, besides a well-done Results Page.
Also, we know it is bad for SEO to have duplicated pages or (maybe) similar pages, ranking for the same (or maybe also similar) keywords. Proposed Structure:
So, what we are thinking is to have this structure:
A unique hierarchical taxonomy that INCLUDES the City AND the profession! That means that our taxonomy ‘taxonomy_unique’ has terms like: ‘Rome’, ‘Paris’, ‘Dublin’ as father and also terms like ‘Plumbers’, ‘Gardeners’, ‘Electricians’ which are sons of some City father! So we will have the term 'Plumbers' son of 'Rome' and we will have also the term 'Plumbers' son of 'Paris'. Each of these two taxonomy terms (Rome/Plumbers and Paris/Plumbers) will have an archive page that we want to make ranking for the keywords ‘Plumbers in Rome’ and ‘Plumbers in Paris’ respectively. It is easier to think of it imagining the breadcrumbs. They will be:
Home > Rome > Plumbers
and
Home > Paris > Plumbers Both will have: a static content (important for SEO), where we describe the plumber profession with a focus on the city, like ‘Find the best Plumbers in Rome’ vs ‘Find the best Plumbers in Paris' a 'dynamic' content - below - that is a list of Custom Post Types which have that taxonomy term associated. Furthermore, also 'Rome' and 'Paris' are taxonomy terms that have their own archive page. In those pages, we are thinking to show the Custom Post Types (agencies) associated with that taxonomy term as a father OR maybe just a list of the 'sons' of that father, so links to those archive pages 'sons').
In both cases, there should be also a static content talking maybe about the city and the professionals it offers in general. Questions:
So what we would like to understand is: Is it bad from an SEO perspective to have 2 URLs that look like this:
www.mysite.com/Rome/Plumbers
and
www.mysite.com/Naples/Plumbers
where the static content is really similar and it is something like that:
“Are you looking for the best plumbers in the city of Rome”
and
“Are you looking for the best plumbers in the city of Naples”? Also, these kinds of pages will be much more than 2, one for each City.
We are doing that because we want the two different pages to rank high in two different cities, but we are not sure if Google likes that. On the other hand, each City will have one page for each kind of job, so:
www.mysite.com/Rome/Plumbers
www.mysite.com/Rome/Gardeners
www.mysite.com/Rome/Electricians
So the same question, does Google like this or not? About 'Rome' and 'Paris' archive pages, does Google prefer a list of Custom Post Types that have that father term associated as taxonomy, or a list of the archive pages 'sons', with links to those pages? What do you think about this approach? Do you think this structure could be good from an SEO perspective, or maybe there could be something better alternatively? Hoping everything is clear, we really appreciate anyone dedicating its time and leaving feedback.
Daniele0 -
Will Reduced Bounce Rate, Increased Pages/Session, Increased Session Duration-RESULT IN BETTER RANKING?
Our relaunched website has a much lower bounce rate (66% before, now 58%) increased pages per session (1.89 before, now 3.47) and increased session duration (1:33 before, now 3:47). The relaunch was December 20th. Should these improvements result in an improvement in Google rank? How about in MOZ authority? We have not significantly changed the content of the site but the UX has been greatly improved. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan11 -
Kind of duplicate categories and custom taxonomy. Necessary, but bad for SEO?
Hello Everyone! I'm new here! My husband and I are working on creating a website: https://sacwellness.com .The site is an online therapist directory for the the Sacramento California area. Our problem is this: In wordpress our category system is being used for blog posts. Our theme is using a custom taxonomy system to categorize different therapist specialties, therapeutic approaches, etc. We've found ourselves in a position where our custom taxonomy and categories are near duplicates. for example we have the blog categories: ADHD counseling, Anxiety therapy, and Career counseling our corresponding custom taxonomy/therapist categories are: ADHD, Anxiety, and....(oops) career counseling. My understanding is that google doesn't see a difference between identically named categories and custom taxonomies and will so choose one to rank and disregard the other, effectively leaving you competing against yourself. is this true in a case like this? Can google maybe understand the difference because of the custom taxonomy and/or URL paths? if this is a problem is it ok to have near duplicates....like ADHD vs. ADHD counseling. This has been our solution so far....but now we're questioning it....derp x_x. I thought about tagging the categories with no index, but I think the archive pages would be useful for people. Essentially we have 2 sets of archives for each keyword. One is for blog posts, and one is for therapists who work with that particular issue along with the 6 most recent blog posts in that category.....because we are putting the 6 most recent blog posts at the bottom of the therapist pages I feel like it wouldn't be as terrible of a loss if we had to noindex the category pages. ....what do you think? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | angelamaemae0 -
URL structure - which one is better?
We are creating a new website and got stuck while deciding the URL structure. Our concern is which url is better in terms of SEO i.e. pune.fabogo.com/spa or fabogo.com/pune/spa and why. Also which one would rank faster if someone searches for **spas in pune if both **pages are same.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabogo_marketing0 -
Any WordPress themes better for schema
I'm putting together a holiday listing sits and as seo is key would like to add schema data. Does anyone know of any themes that are easier to do this with for a non techie - have looked at plug ins but they get a mixed review Thanks Neil
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | neilhenderson1 -
Can't understand our Ranking; DA, PA and On Page all better than Competiton; Ranking no where
Our rankings are up and down but our domain is clean, DA and PA good
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexSTUDIO18
and there is really in depth content which is all original. We are at a bit of a loss; The site is
http://www.fightstorepro.com I can use the phrase "Boxing Gloves" as an example
http://www.fightstorepro.com/gear/gloves/boxing-gloves.html PA 26 , DA29
Good original content; Video content, On page grade A
Not ranking in top 50 places?? The competitor in Pos4 is not matching our placing Anyone shed any light on this?0 -
Better for SEO to No-Index Pages with High Bounce Rates
Greeting MOZ Community: I operate www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, a New York City commercial real estate web site established in 2006. An SEO effort has been ongoing since September 2013 and traffic has dropped about 30% in the last month. The site has about 650 pages. 350 are listing pages, 150 are building pages. The listing and building pages have an average bounce rate of about 75%. The other 150 pages have a bounce rate of about 35%. The building and listing pages are dragging down click through rates for the entire site. My SEO firm believe there might be a benefit to "no-index, follow" these high bounce rate URLs. From an SEO perspective, would it be worthwhile to "no-index-follow" most of the building and listing pages in order to reduce the bounce rate? Would Google view the site as a higher quality site if I had these pages de-indexed and the average bounce rate for the site dropped significantly. If I no-indexed these pages would Google provide bette ranking to the pages that already perform well? As a real estate broker, I will constantly be adding many property listings that do not have much content so it seems that a "no-index, follow" would be good for the listings unless Google penalizes sites that have too many "no-index, follow" pages. Any thoughts??? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
How to Specify Canonical Link Element for Better Performing?
I read Google webmaster centeral's blog post and help article about rel="canonical" which was compiled by Matt. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394 I am working on eCommerce website and found too many duplicate pages with same product as follow. 1. www.lampslightingandmore.com/50_62_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
2. www.lampslightingandmore.com/48_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
3. www.lampslightingandmore.com/48_55_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
4. www.lampslightingandmore.com/48_57_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
5. www.lampslightingandmore.com/50_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
6. www.lampslightingandmore.com/50_56_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
7. www.lampslightingandmore.com/50_63_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
8. www.lampslightingandmore.com/63_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
9. www.lampslightingandmore.com/68_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
10. www.lampslightingandmore.com/68_58_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html
11. www.lampslightingandmore.com/68_59_10133/java-bronze-floor-lamp-with-walnut-shade.html I have consider 1st product as a primary product and set following rel canonical tag on remaining products. Primary product also contain following rel canonical tag. This was my experience to set canonical tag. But, I am not able to see any improvement on crawling. I was in that assumption due to duplication Google did not crawled my pages. But, Now what is problem with it? How can I fix it and specify proper canonical link element for better crawling? Note: I am working to compile unique content on each product pages and make it live very soon.0