Keyword Domain URL structure
-
Hello all,
We have a domain with one of the primary keyword within the domain itself (audisite) and reading through some of the topics, having a keyword within the domain itself seems to be not as significant as we had assumed. We currently have a URL strucuture ( http://audisite.co.uk/new-audi/a4 ) which we were thinking of modifying to something like audisite.co.uk/a4 based on the premise that the 'audi' keyword is already in the domain itself.
Also in terms of URL optimization, which of these will be the most effective URL (if the content is exactly the same). Or is my whole approach incorrect to URL optimization fundamentally incorrect?
- /a4
- /new-audi-a4
- /new/audi-a4
- /new-audi/a4
- /new/audi/a4
I will be very grateful for any advice/suggestions/pointers. Thank you very much for your time.
-
No problem.
Glad to help.
Mike
-
Thank you very much Mike for taking the time to reply. I will take in your suggestion when redoing the structure. Much more clearer now.
-
No problem.
So, having keywords in your URL is really helpful for SEO, but don't over complicate it and don't stress about it
In the small amount of testing I have done, you probably wouldn't see a huge ranking difference between the different naming conventions as long as they are at the same level. Meaning you'd "probably" have the same ranking for /new-audi/a4 as you would /new/audi-a4.
To answer your question, a flat architecture is awesome to have from a crawler standpoint and from a user standpoint. If you have a landing page /new-audi and a "product" page /new-audi-a4 at the same level, that is great. It is easier for people to remember and share on social vs having it go down another level.
The only time this flat architecture can become a headache is when you have a ton of pages and trying to remember where everything is from a site structure point of view when you are managing things.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you once more for taking the time to reply.
Everything you said made sense. Just to clarify if make sure I am getting this correctly I will ask one final question. If I have the landing pages /new-audi and /used-audi with links (or a dynmically generated product listing in the case of used-audi) to the specific model, it would make sense to have a url strucuture like /new-audi/a4 or /used-audi/a4?
But will it be any more advantageous to have the URL as /new-audi-a4, /used-audi-a4 despite having the landing page that points to these models or do you think despite the deeper level in /new-audi/a4 won't be much of an issue as there would be a landing page pointing to each of the new audi model.
I hope I did not confuse you more. And thank you very much for your time. Very grateful for it.
-
Sure thing.
Yes. I was referring to the URL in the second portion of my original comment.
Right on. I wasn't completely following the reasoning behind "new", so that is why I suggested just /a4 or /audi-a4. After you explanation that you are having new and used, that makes perfect sense.
You are correct. It is another level deep and that makes it appear as though it does not hold as much importance from a structural point of view - that is why I would suggest it being /new-audi-a4 vs /new-audi/a4; however, it all depends on your site structure (although URL naming doesn't have to follow site structure). If you have /new-audi landing page, which has links to different cars, a4, a5, etc. then it would make sense to use the /new-audi and /used-audi format. If your site does not use that type of structure, it may seem confusing to someone who is just looking at the URL.
Does that make sense?
Mike
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you for the reply. Shorter URLs do make sense.
The second part I got a little confused with. You said "so I would feel comfortable using the product name "audi" at the page product level"; I presume you mean this is in the URL as the whole second paragraph seems like the reason for why I should be doing it?
My only concern of not going with either /a4 or /audi-a4 is because the domain will have both new and used audi. But the option /new-audi-a4 does seem like the best way forward here as I could simply change the new to used.
And if I may, is there anything concrete to use /new-audi-a4 rather than /new-audi/a4. The only reason I can see is that the second URL strucuture would mean the a4 is one level deeper than the first URL structure.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
-
Hi Niraj,
Shorter, higher level URLs "typically" perform better in the SERPs.
I personally would probably do either /a4 or /new-audi-a4 or even /audi-a4.
There is a difference between your domain (brand) and the page (product), so I would feel comfortable using the product name "audi" at the page product level, even though it is already in the domain - if that makes sense.
Hope this helps.
Mike
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
-
Missing Inbound Linking Domains
For some reason, our websites seem to be missing a number of authoritative inbound linking domains which seems to be a primary driver in lowering our domain authority as compared to our competition. Does anyone have any feedback as to why this might not be populating or is there something additional we need to do to have these show up? If it doesn't show up in MOZ is it likely that Google might also not be seeing these as inbound link domains? Thanks as always MOZ Community!
Link Building | | Leithmarketing0 -
How to find keywords in super-small niche?
hi I try to find good keywords to rank a “dog day care” site for and can't seem to find anything that makes sense. This is a company that sells franchises of their service – dog day care. So there is a “mother site” where they advertise service in general and try to sell franchises. If you go “pet franchise”; “pet franchises”; “dog day care franchise” etc – you get virtually zero traffic keywords. On the other hand if I use “doggy day care” it will bring mostly people who are looking for a place to leave their dog for a day. Doesn't make sense either way. Same goes for local sites. If you look at “doggy day care location” it brings next to nothing. Using “doggy day care” without specific location doesn't make sense either, as certain location applies only to people living in say 50 mile radius. I would really appreciate any ideas how to approach this. How to promote small “dog day care” franchising company? And how to promote particular locations? Thank you in advance, JJ
Link Building | | jjtech0 -
Website structure for SEO
Hi,Im working on Food Recipes website, i"m targeting "step by step recipes" how should i structure this website and what pages should i build my links to? If the whole website is about "step by step recipes" When you search for "step by step recipes" on Google, you'll see most of them are separate pages Should i create its own category call it "step by step recipes" and list all of my posts? but isn't it duplicated content ? ill be really appreciated with your help ! Thank you
Link Building | | KentR0 -
Simple Question Regarding Keyword Landing Page
Hi guys, I run a small online business in Singapore want to try to DIY SEO. Been doing alot of reading and using the wonderful tools at Seomoz. This might be the first dumb question here. Its very basic but i cant seem to find anything on it (maybe its too simple). Let's say i want to rank 3 keywords - A, B & C. Do i use homepage as landing page for all 3 or do i use 3 separate pages? ( i tend to think the latter is correct). If I use 3 pages and do all necessary optimization and start a link building campaign, do i get backlinks to point back to homepage or the kw targeted page? Eg. an article submission exercise (not the best thing to do i know but i promise ill only submit to good sites). Are these the right things i should do? Keyword: car horns. landing page: carshop.com/car-horns write a 400 word article about car horns and use as content on carshop.com/car-horns write another 400 word article about car horns and post to say carhornarticles.com at the end of article mention a line about my business dealing with car horns and hyperlink 'car horns' pointing back to ??? (carshop.com or carshop.com/carhorns) repeat, writing unique articles each time but changing anchor text to something different each time, maybe 'purchase car horn' etc. Or should links be divided between both carshop.com& carshop.com/carhorns? I swear i used the search function before asking this question. Hope it's not so silly i dont get any help. Thanks guys!
Link Building | | babooni0 -
Can't rank with certain keywords for the life of me
I have a website http://www.freescrabbledictionary.com in which functions as a scrabble dictionary lookup and word finder for scrabble. There are many keywords that rank well for this niche but the main ones I target are Scrabble Dictionary Scrabble Cheat Scrabble Word Finder Scrabble Help I used to rank well for all these keywords, I am 4th with scrabble dictionary currently but with the other 3 am no where near the top. On March 24th I dropped off the map for scrabble cheat, scrabble word finder and scrabble help. I actually dropped to 9/10th for scrabble dictionary on that date as well but since then I have been able to hold on steady to 4th. I can't figure out why I can't rank for those other keywords anymore. Its almost like Google has penalized me for those keywords. I have contacted Google a few times to ask if I have any penalties and they have told me that I don't. Even though in my backlinking I have targeted these keywords I can't seem to rank for them no matter what I do. The only idea I have come up with is that Google has re-associated those other 3 keywords in a group and separated scrabble dictionary on its own. I have other sites I have created in the same niche and I have noticed if the URL contains "word", "Finder" and/or "cheat" I can rank in the 3 keywords within about a week all the way up to the second page. My main site FSD has the highest DA and PA compared to my other sites. Any idea why I can't seem to rank for those other 3 keywords anymore?
Link Building | | cbielich0 -
Links from erotic domains
hi.. I have purchased several domains which have had a lot of backlinks.. a lot of these backlinks are still active but mainly from pornsites.. do those backlinks affect the websites i links to from the domain? fx. lets say i have the domain abc.com which has a link from sex.com.. Now i want to link from abc.com to def.com - will the link from sex.com affect def.com in any way?
Link Building | | AdForce10 -
Get a new domain?
Hey, I have a niche website which ranked quite good in the beginning (especially image search). I published new posts every other day and also new links. Since around six months this site doesnt rank at all anymore (page 5) and I'm not sure if I should get a new domain, republish the articles and 301 all links. Would that make sense or is it better to start a new site from scratch? Thanks!
Link Building | | netminds0 -
Are In bound links to a Custom URL ineffective
Hi All, I would like to know what would achieve the best inbound link ranking from google. I have to run an inbound link campaign and have to choose between two options: Option 1, get people to link directly to the home page or Option 2, get people to link to a custom url (for example, www.domain.com/index.aspx?dealer1455) the custom url has a function to hide certain menu items on the home page. Also The custom url ID number will also change for each person that links to us. So in effect each link is directed to an individual custom URL. My preference is option 1. But a number of the people linking to us would prefer to link to a custom home page that has their competitors details hidden. At the end of the day the decision needs to be made on what will provide our site with the best rankings in the serps What option is best to improve search engine rankings ? Many Thanks in advance
Link Building | | SaimanRhino0