URL structure for SEO
-
Hi Mozzers,
I have a site which is a combination of product pages, and news and advice pages that relate to the products. How would you approach the URL structure for this, following SEO best practice?
Approach 1
Product pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-pageNews and advice pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-page/news-and-advice-story-1
www.website.com/product-category/product-page/news-and-advice-story-2
etcor Approach 2
Product pages:
www.website.com/product-category/product-pageNews and advice pages:
www.website.com/news/product-category/news-and advice-story-1 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
www.website.com/news/product-category/news-and advice-story-2 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
etcOr would a different approach be better?
-
Why not:
www.website.com/news/news-and advice-story-1 (with internal linking to relevant product page)
www.website.com/news/news-and advice-story-2 (with internal linking to relevant product page)Or is there a need to have product-category in the path for some reason?
Can a product be in more than one category? How are you handling that? -
Totally agree with Andy.
Products or news pages, makes no difference in my opinion.
Keeping them focused and relevant will help not only the bots but more importantly, your customers.
I like to use the "how would you file this doc for someone to find in 1 years time?" question.
Simple but accurate.
HTH
Regards
Daren
-
The answer is whichever one works best for your particular situation.
Yes, while fewer folders is a benefit, it might not make sense to do this if you need to separate products, for example.
Try to keep URL's short, sensible and straight to the point - don't add keyword bloat and never stuff the URL's.
-Andy
-
Hi,
IMO approach 2 would be the best because fewer folders is generally better.
Thanks
-
Hello,
I think I should choose the second one. But be careful with that solution, and put IDs in URL with automatic redirect.
For example www.website.com/product-category/product-page => www.website.com/phone/iphone-1234.htmlIf you change product-category name (phone => smartphone or apple phone) or product-page name (iphone => iphone 5), old URLs can be automatically redirected with simple conditionnal code at the beginning of your server code (load name with ID and the compare with URL)
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
-
SEO page descriptions on mobile - how to hide while preserving the juice for SEO?
Hi everybody, On our pages we have crafted good text paragraphs for SEO purposes. On desktop everything is fine but on mobile the paragraph of text pushes the main content really low on the page. Is there a way of hiding the text while preserving the SEO juices and not getting penalised by Google for spamming techniques? I'd appreciate any recommendations on how to deal with this. Thanks very much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Firebox0 -
Multilingual SEO - site using Google translate within existing URL structure
Hi everyone - I've just been looking at a site that simply uses Google Translate through its website. So basically, on any page you can Google Translate the content to any language you like - there's no change to the URL structure according to language, etc. I haven't come across this approach before (simply allowing users to Google Translate withing the existing page) - and it doesn't sit well with me - let me have your thoughts re: the SEO implications. Thanks in advance, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Multiple, Partial Redirecting URLs from old SEO company
Received quite a surprise when I gained access to the Google webmaster account and saw 4 domains that are link to my clients domain and the number of links for each domain range between 10,000 and 90,000. Come to find out this was a result of their former agency. The business is very local central. I will use the example of a burger place. They main site is burgers.com and burger places are listed by city and state. Their former agency bought several domains like californiaburgers.com and duplicated the listings for that state on this domain. You can view certain pages of the second domain, but the home page is redirected as are most of the city pages with 301s to the main burgers.com domain. However, there are pages on the additional domains that do not redirect, as they are not duplicated on the main domain so nowhere to redirect. Google has only found four of them but looks like there could be at least 50. Pages that are not redirected are indexed by the engines - but not ranking (at least not well). There is a duplicate content issue, although "limited" in the sense that it really is just the name of the business, address and phone number - there is not much to these listings. What is the best approach to overcome? Right now GWT is showing over 300,000 links, however at least 150,000 to 200,000 of that is from these domains.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LeverSEO0 -
URL or Domain length
Hi All, I am wondering if google still does give importance to the length of the domain or url. If yes then how much is the acceptable length of a domain and URL. Many Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HiteshBharucha0 -
URL blocked
Hi there, I have recently noticed that we have a link from an authoritative website, however when I looked at the code, it looked like this: <a <span="">href</a><a <span="">="http://www.mydomain.com/" title="blocked::http://www.mydomain.com/">keyword</a> You will notice that in the code there is 'blocked::' What is this? has it the same effect as a nofollow tag? Thanks for any help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780 -
SEO and Pictures tool
Hello, I need to share pictures albums. I would like to know if any of you have an opinion on the best tools available to share pictures on the web? When I say 'the best tool' I mean from an SEO perspective. So, based on your experience, is there tools with which I have better chances to get my pictures indexed? Thanks !! Note: CNET has created a great article that present the major players
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EnigmaSolution0 -
Technical SEO issue
Hi Everyone, I have encountered a major issue in one of my clients website(kitchen appliance website). This client has 2 main websites (A & B) linked with each other representing 2 different categories of appliances. We are trying to create some brand pages that this store carries. One brand page has been created and when searching for it on SERP, the results found should be under URL A but it is under URL B. I don't know what is going on? Can someone explain me what happened? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Quick URL structure question
Say you've got 5,000 articles. Each of these are from 2-3 generations of taxonomy. For example: example.com/motherboard/pc/asus39450 example.com/soundcard/pc/hp39 example.com/ethernet/software/freeware/stuffit294 None of the articles were SUPER popular as is, but they still bring in a bit of residual traffic combined. Few thousand or so a day. You're switching to a brand new platform. Awesome new structure, taxonomy, etc. The real deal. But, historically, you don't have the old taxonomy functions. The articles above, if created today, file under example.com/hardware/ This is the way it is from here on out. But what to do with the historical files? keep the original URL structure, in the new system. Readers might be confused if they try to reach example.com/motherboard, but at least you retain all SEO weight and these articles are all older anyways. Who cares? Grab some lunch. change the urls to /hardware/, and redirect everything the right way. Lose some rank maybe, but its a smooth operation, nice and neat. Grab some dinner. change the urls to /hardware/ DONT redirect, surprise Google with 5k articles about old computer hardware. Magical traffic splurge, go skydiving. Panic, cry into your pillow. Get job signing receipts at CostCo Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico0