Would you shorten this url, and if so how?
-
I designed the structure of my website way before I even thought about SEO. I run a website that requires me to categorize articles is somewhat deep nested categories so an example url would be as follows
Would you shorten the url to somethign like this?
http://www.yakangler.com/a/n/np/b/item/1442-jackson-kayak-launches-the-big-tuna
If so how would you manage the redirects I'm unsure how to add a 301 redirect in my .htaccess file that wouldn't require me to add one for every single article. Could I do it with a rule that recognizes only the middle part of the url and redirect it accordingly?
Thanks for any advice you might have!
-
I agree one hundred percent with Irving and Joseph. I would also ask you how your site is ranking and how old is the site and these URLs. You loose the age aspect of the URLs when you change them. You do gain the advantage and that's what you have to measure, the risk vs reward. Also, do you have inbound links / deep links to these pages ? And I am pretty sure you have the 301s in mind, I thought I'll mention, just in case.
I hope this helps.
-
Thanks for the good info Irving and Joseph, I wish I would have thought about SEO when initially building the site! I guess I'm going to look into a component to handle the redirects.
-
Great answer Irving,
I agree,
You don't want to go too many categories deep...
www.your-site.com/category-keyword1/category-keyword2/main-content-article-here
Try to naturally fit your keywords in the URL.
I find helps with ranking potential.
Because of seo best practices i like to keep my URL lengths within Seomoz recommendations of below 115 characters.
-
nope, you are still too many folder deep and your example is worse because the folder names are now meaningless.
this is slightly better:
http://www.yakangler.com/articles/products/boats/1442-jackson-kayak-launches-the-big-tuna
this is even better if you can swing it
http://www.yakangler.com/boats/1442-jackson-kayak-launches-the-big-tuna-boat
a) articles is not needed
b) new products won't always be new
c) boats is a legit category
d) item is not needed
e) get "boat" in your filename if you are trying to rank for that term
You can handle redirects through automation if you are using a cms like wordpress
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
-
Changing site URL structure
Hey everybody, I'm looking for a bit of advice. A few weeks ago Google sent me an email saying all pages with any text input on them need to switch to https for those pages. This is no problem, I was slowly switching the site to https anyway using a 301 redirect. However, my site also has a language subfolder in the url, mysite.com/en/ mysite.com/ru/ etc. Due to poor work on my part the translations of the site haven't been updated in a long time and lots of the pages are in english even on the russian version etc. So I'm thinking of just removing this url structure and just having mysite.com My plan is to 301 all requests to https and remove the language subfolder in the url at the same time. So far the https switching hasn't changed my rankings. Am I more at risk of losing my rankings by doing this? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ruhol0 -
URL has caps, but canonical does not. Now what?
Hi, Just started working with a site that has the occasional url with a capital, but then the url in the canonical as lower case. Neither, when entered in a browser, resolves to the other. It's a Shopify site. What do you think I should do?
Technical SEO | | 945010 -
New URL Structure
Hi Guy's, For our webshop we're considering a new URL structure because longtail keywords to rank so well. Now we have /category (main focus keywords)
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
/product/the-product345897345123/ (nice to rank on, not that much volume) We have over 500 categories and every one of them is placed after our domain. Because i think it's better to work with a good structure and managed a way to make categories and sub-categories. The 500 categories may be the case why not every one of them is ranking so well, so that was also the choice of thinking about a new structure. So the new URL structure will be: /category (main focus keywords)
/category/subcat/ (also main focus keywords) Everything will be redirect (301, good way), so i think there won't be to much problems. I'm thinking about what to do with the /product/ URL. Because now it will be on the same level as the subcategories, and i'm affraid that when it's on that level, Google will give the same value to both of them. My options that i'm considering are: **Old way **
/product/the-product-345897345123/ .html (seen this on big webshops)
/product/the-product-345897345123.html/ Level deeper SKU /product/the-product/345897345123/ What would you suggest? The new structure would be 20 categories 500+ sub's devided under main categories 5000+ products Thanks!0 -
URLs Case Sensitive Serving Duplications
At PakWheels.com we have URLs being generated in upper and lower cases. For example following URLs serve pages: http://www.pakwheels.com/used-cars/search/-/mk_Toyota/ http://www.pakwheels.com/used-cars/search/-/mk_toyota/ Both show same content. Similarly in following four cases: http://www.pakwheels.com/used-cars/search/-/mk_Toyota/md_corolla/ http://www.pakwheels.com/used-cars/search/-/mk_Toyota/md_Corolla/ http://www.pakwheels.com/used-cars/search/-/mk_toyota/md_Corolla/ http://www.pakwheels.com/used-cars/search/-/mk_toyota/md_corolla/ all of these 4 URLs serve page with same content. What is the best practice for this issue, is it generating duplication? Please advise
Technical SEO | | razasaeed0 -
How to handle lots of URL parameters
Howdy mozzers I'm hoping you can lend some advice. I'm dealing with a site now with loads of URL parameters. It's a vehicle dealership group which hosts its entire inventory from multiple locations on one page, sorted by parameters. Example inventory URL: www.dealership.com/car-inventory.asp?pa=&ns=10&so=m&sor=DESC&ma=&mod=&mt=&yr=&bs=&pr=&t=used&ln= Where pa (page no.); ns (number of vehicles shown); so (sort by condition); sor (sort order); ma (make); mod (model); yr (year); bs (body style); pr (price range); t (type - new, used, etc.); ln (location no.). As you can imagine this generates a gazillion URLs (or slightly less). Any thoughts on best canonicalization options? Thanks as always
Technical SEO | | jamesm5i0 -
What are the SEO implications of URLs that use a # in them?
I have several clients who have begun to ask questions about sites that are designed to look like a single page. When you click on a link, the URL changes but it uses a # before (i.e. http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa**/#**/teamusa/athletes/kerri-walsh.html. What are the SEO implications of having a page set up this way? I noticed that Google has indexed this page but the indexed URL does not include a #. Is Google indexing a separate version of this page? Any insights would be really helpful! Thanks
Technical SEO | | VMLYRDiscoverability0 -
URL content format - Any impact on SEO
I understand that there is a suggested maximum length for a URL so as not to be penalized by search engines. I'm wondering if I should if should optimize our ecommerce categories to be descriptive or use abbreviations to help keep the URL length to a minimum? Our products are segmented into many categories, so many products URL's are pretty long if we go the descriptive route. I've also heard that removing the category component entirely from a product URL can also be considered. I'm fairly new to all this SEO stuff, so I'm hoping the community can share their knowledge on the impact of these options. Cheers, Steve
Technical SEO | | SteveMaguire0 -
How do I fix these duplicate URLs?
HI guys, I ran a report on my site and it shows some duplicate titles (example below). Do I need to add something to the htaccess file or another file to fix this? I understand that the search engines should only see 1 URL for the page. 2 pages have "Bikes for sale | used bikes | second hand bicycles" title pauslwebsite.com/bikes/ paulswebsite.com/bikes/index.asp Thanks
Technical SEO | | paulmund0