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
-
Alexa top domain losted link
my website has alot of losted backlink from alexa top domain. is it ok ? url: https://www.payamgostar.com/
Link Building | | pgmarketing2008acn0 -
HOW DOES A CANONICAL INFLUENCE OR IMPACT ON A URL WITH BACKLINKS?
I have url A with a canonical to URL B. How is the behavior of the backlinks profile on url A? If some put a backlink to url A count as a backlink for url B?
Link Building | | Linio0 -
Tools for Documenting and Monitoring Link Structure
The sites I work with all have increasingly published more and more content. In order to maximize the potential and "link juice" of every post and the site, we are linking the post to other relevant internal posts. What I want to ask though is if the community here has any tips or recommendations as a way to monitor and track this. The reason being that I don't want to just go in guns blazing and link all over the place. I want to keep and maintain link structure, even on a content level. For now, I've been using pencil and paper and assigning numbers to keep structure. However, with so many posts and so many links within each post, I'm starting to notice that maybe this is a little impractical. Are there any recommendations?
Link Building | | JasonKhoo0 -
Bad Links to New Domain - Do I Disavow?
About 2 months ago a new client of mine bought a domain and we built him a nice new site; however, it appears the previous owner of the domain used some spammy SEO tactics. I've had to redirect about 30 pages and now I've found some spammy links. I've only discovered a few of them, but he doesn't have that many links yet so I'm wondering what kind of impact this will have. Is it worth disavowing a half dozen links? The sites are in Chinese and appear to be unmanaged link farms so getting the webmaster to remove them is unlikely. Also wondering what else is lurking out there that I haven't discovered yet... I suggested to the client we consider a different domain since the site is new, but he's become pretty attached to it. Any ideas?
Link Building | | Dino640 -
Sending Domain Authority from Root www domain to *
Hello all Some advice please. Im working with a friend who has a website (obviously). Its based on wordpress and is accessible by the link http://exampledomain.com. The problem is he has some good links out there which are pointing at http://www.exampledomain.com. As yet Im uncertain how he has setup his DNS, he maybe is doing a forward which would leave the DA back with the www subdomain. What is his best practice to inherit those links into his actual domain? Thanks
Link Building | | DarrenMOB0 -
About to get my competition domain, how what I can do?
Hello, I'm trying to get a domain from what it used to be my main competition, if I get this domain can I forward the domain to my website? because they have good local ranking that I don't have and also a lot of links. I don't really want to use that brand name, I just want to take advantage of the links they already created if that possible. Or can I do something else with the domain or just buy it and keep it so nobody else can buy it? Thank you
Link Building | | jpgprinting0 -
Yahoo Directory unable to access a domain for submission
Tried submitting a website to Yahoo!'s directory but each time no matter how i input the domain i get the following error: We were unable to access your web page. Please double-check your URL. Is there anyway to contact Yahoo! to request a manual submission?
Link Building | | EAOM1 -
Links per Site vs. Domain Authority
Here's a quaint one: 1. Posting follow links on another site helps increase one's domain authority. 2. If I post to the same site/forum with followed links each week, would my domain authority reap a domain authority increase benefit? In short, is there any domain authority benefit to continually post links to a site to which I've already posted a follow link?
Link Building | | GreenCupboards0