Google & Site Architecture
-
Hi
I've been reading the following article about Google's quality signals here:
They mention - 3) All your categories should be accessible from the main menu. All your web pages should be labelled with the relevant categories.
Is this every category? We have some say 3 levels deep, and they aren't all in the menu. I'd like them to be, so would be good to make a case for it.
Thank you
-
Hi
Oh not to worry, there's no rush
It's a development issue, but they are currently reviewing this and we have requested lower levels in the menu structure.
-
Let me do a quick audit of this I will get back to you right away sorry about the long wait. When you talking about the inability to change navigation (level 3) Can I ask is it because you do not have Development or rights or is it a CMS issue?
Tom
-
Becky I am so sorry for the long delay I will reply to you tomorrow by this time
Tom
-
Thank you very much for your replies & advice
Here is an example of our site structure, our URL structure is very simple, nothing sits within a folder.
So if I want to rank this page - http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/personal-protection-equipment-lockers
The structure at present is:
Home > Cupboards & Lockers > (linked from main nav) > Lockers (linked from main nav) > PPE Lockers - Linked from Lockers page not in main nav.
In order to better rank the PPE lockers page (the page does need better onpage optimisation) I was thinking of product additional content, user guide/blogs - linking to the page this way.
My struggle is, I don't have the ability to control the top navigation - it's automatic and won't show links to level 3 pages.
Becky
-
Think CRAWL BUDGET
the crawl budget is the number of requests made by Googlebot to your website in a particular period of time. In simple terms, it’s the number of opportunities to present Google the fresh content on your website.
See this to understand
https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/optimize-crawl-budget-tips-examples/
If you ever repeat a URL path more than twice, the URL will not be indexed. For example, this URL would not be indexed in Google.
Even if the repeated paths are broken up by another unique path, the URL will not be indexed. e.g.
This URL would not be indexed.
example.com/path/path/unique/path/
This is because Google thinks it has hit a URL trap.
URL traps occur most often when a relative link includes the same path as where the page is located. Relative URLs are added to the end of the paths of the URL which contains the link.
For example, if you had a page like example.com/path/page.html, which included a relative link back to itself using “/path/page1.html”, the actual URL of the link is example.com/path/path/page1.html. If this page is returned by the server, it will contain another relative link to “/path/page1.html”, which is actually the URL example.com/path/path/path/page1.html. And so ad infinitum.
See https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/never-repeat-pathnames-in-urls-more-than-twice/
Build Your Universal Navigation
- Identify why visitors come to your site. You probably have a pretty good idea of what people want already, but check your web analytics:
- What search terms do visitors use before they get to your site? Keywords used by incoming visitors tell you what your visitors were looking for before they clicked through to your site. Follow up to see which pages they visited - did they find what they were looking for?
- If you’re tracking internal site search, what search terms do visitors use once they’re on your site? On average, only 10% of visitors use site search. So, it’s safe to assume that most people only use site search if they have a hard time finding what they want with your navigation. What terms are visitors searching for? Do you have that page? Is it hidden?
- What pages on your site get the most traffic? If those are the pages that you want to get the most traffic, keep those in mind as you build your navigational structure to make sure they're easy for visitors to find. If they aren't particularly high conversion pages, what's a similar page that you can steer those visitors to?
- What are your top exit pages? If they’re locations or external contact information, that’s probably something a lot of your visitors are looking for. You should include that in your top navigation.
Divide your products/key pages into categories.
- Usability experts recommend “card sorting”: put your products on cards, lay them out on a flat surface so you can see them all, and cluster similar items together. There are also a few websites out there that will let you sort cards without taking up so much floor space:http://www.optimalworkshop.com/optimalsort.htm andhttp://uxpunk.com/websort/
https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/site-navigation-for-seo/
Hope this helps,
Tom
- Identify why visitors come to your site. You probably have a pretty good idea of what people want already, but check your web analytics:
-
Hi,
Ideally, you want everything that's important as high up the menu structure as possible without making it too unusable for actual customers.
If it's 3 levels deep, then it's starting to get to the stage where I'd either look to move the category up if it's an important one, or possible merge it with something else that's relevant to be able to get it higher in the menu structure. Ultimately it's about managing your crawl budget and if you're burying something 3+ levels down, it's less likely to be regularly crawled unless it's incredibly popular from external links etc.
Flatter, shallower navigation and menus are always best as long as they're still usable...
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
-
Site appearing and disappearing from google serps.
Hi, My website is normally on page 2-3 on google consistently. Over the past month it has been appearing and then completely disappearing from the serps. One day it will be on page 2, then the next day completely missing from the serps. When i check the index it seems to be indexed correctly when doing site:mysite.com. I don't understand why this keeps happening, any experience with this issue? It doesn't seem to be a google dance as far as I can tell. When my other sites dance they typically just go up or down a few ranks for a couple weeks until they stabilize. Not completely fall off the search engine.
Algorithm Updates | | Chris_www0 -
Google live blog schema
Live blog markup was rolled out to a selected group of publishers last year 2015. I'm trying to find out whether it has been released to other publishers yet (we are a news site). Not seeing any updates about it anywhere and wondering how I can find out if/when it will be available. This is the latest I can see which is not much help https://developers.google.com/search/pilot/open/live-blogs. Any insider info would be very much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | hjsand2 -
Google Panda July 2016
Hi Does anyone know what impact the recent slow Panda roll out may have? Obviously content, but would it perhaps include engagement/user behaviour factors regarding your on page content too? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Does anyone have an idea of the benefits of Google Analytics Premium?
We've been having a discussion about the GA Premium service here in our office, trying to weigh up the pro's and con's... For the majority all it seems you gain access to is more support from google. We're trying to find out if that is the case or if you gain extra information, such as and insight into the search terms who must not be named. Of course i'm talking about the (Not Set) data... This section of data is ever increasing, yes i know we can access certain terms through webmasters but it was so much easier (in the good ol' days) when all the data was under one roof! Any thought opinions or even more questions would be greatly appreciated, i look forward to your responses. Anthony
Algorithm Updates | | Kal-SEO0 -
Google Reconsideration - To do or not to do?
We haven't been manually penalized by Google yet but we have had our fair share of things needing to be fixed; malware, bad links, lack/if no content, lack-luster UX, and issues with sitemaps & redirects. Should we still submit a reconsideration even though we haven't had a direct penalty? Does hurt us to send it?
Algorithm Updates | | GoAbroadKP0 -
Dropped out of Google top 50 - Jan 28 2013
On Jan 28 - 2013 google dropped many of our keywords from its index.Here is the history of Rank June 24 2012 - RANK 2 Nov 18 2012 - RANK 8 NOV 25 2012 - RANK 15 JAN 6 2013 - RANK 10 JAN 13 2013 - RANK 21 JAN 20 2013 - RANK 9 Jan 27 2013 - RANK 6 JAN 28 2013 - DROPS OUT OF GOOGLE Graph http://i.imgur.com/ABYJ3MS.jpg The ON PAGE is an A for the homepage, errors and warnings are all DOWN over time. Would the last Google Update have caused this? Bing and Yahoo went UP and google dropped right out http://i.imgur.com/vP8Uvu8.jpg The red box is the keyword in question, but many others dropped out of top 50 Anyone have any ideas on what I should look for or which update could be responsible? ABYJ3MS.jpg vP8Uvu8.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | syndicate1 -
Will signing up for Google Places affect my national rankings
OK, Here is a question which I can't find but think people have thought about. I would like to know others opinion. I have had a site that ranks well under generic national keyword terms. (not geographically specific) Its a small website, only 10 pages. We get 85% of our business from online applications. These applications come from all over the united states.Our SERP rankings generate 70% of all our traffic. My question is this: we operate in a state where we don't do business. We are a virtual business. Should I sign up for google places? Will It hurt my national SERP rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | FidelityOne0 -
What determines rankings in a site: search?
When I perform a "site:" search on my domains (without specifying a keyword) the top ranked results seem to be a mixture of sensible top-level index pages plus some very random articles. Is there any significance to what Google ranks highly in a site: search? There is some really unrepresentative content returned on page 1, including articles that get virtually no traffic. Is this seriously what Google considers our best or most typical content?
Algorithm Updates | | Dennis-529610