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
-
How often does Google review Featured Snippets? What do you think?
Hi, I was wondering if anyone knows how often Google review Featured Snippets and if there is a way to find out? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | Chris29181 -
A company claiming to have a proprietary software that replicates Google algorithm?
Hi all, Unfortunately, getting into a bit of a p*ssing match 😞 with a company trying to compete for the business of one of our clients and just wanted to some feedback from the community here. The company competing for the client's business claims to have spent $1 million to replicate Google's algorithm so they create a replica site (not sure I understand this) of the client site, then test and optimize on-page SEO changes in their software to determine whether the on-page changes are ideal. Sounds fishy to me. Thoughts?
Algorithm Updates | | RickyShockley0 -
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 -
Is there a we to get Google to index our site quicker?
I have updated some pages on a website, is there a way to get Google to index the page quicker?
Algorithm Updates | | webguru20140 -
Google Page Rank not improving
Hi All, I have a site live with a homepage rank of 5, Ever since relaunching (on the same domain) 6 months ago the inner page rank has remained at NA. Its crawled pretty consistently, Can anyone think of a reason this may be happening? www.glowm.com
Algorithm Updates | | thebluecubeuk0 -
Proper Way To Submit A Reconsideration Request To Google
Hello, In previous posts, I was speaking about how we were penalized by Google for unnatural links. Basically 50,000 our of our 58,000 links were coming from 4-5 sites with the same exact anchor text and img alt tags. This obviously was causing our issues. Needless to say, I wen through the complete link profile to determine that all of the links besides this were of natrural origins. My question here is what is the accepted protocol of submitting a reinclusion request; For example, how long should it be? Should I disclose that I was in fact using paid links, and now that I removed (or at least nofollowed) them? I want to make sure that the request as good as it should so I can get our rankings up in a timely manner. Also, how long until the request is typically aknowledged? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BestOdds0 -
What do i need to do to drive more traffic to my site
Hi i built a site around ten months ago but at the moment i am only receiving around 3 visitors a a day. it is a travel site that i write new content for but because i am still learning seo i am not sure what i have been doing wrong. I am not sure of the basics from getting people to the site or the correct way of generating free links or if i should be submitting my site to all these free site submitters which includes to lycos and other free services that you can find on google. If anyone can please explain what i am doing wrong and how to generate more traffic for free then that would be great. also can anyone recommend any free service that would help with increasing traffic and links
Algorithm Updates | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Are you getting any action from Google +1 ?
If you have added google plus one to your website you can check on the impact by visiting your webmaster tools account. In your GWT account you will see a left menu item for "+1 Metrics". If you click on "Search Impact" you can see the CTR change attributed to +1. Anybody seeing anything there yet?
Algorithm Updates | | EGOL0