Optimal URL Structure for a Multi-City Directory
-
I need help choosing the ideal URL structure for a multi-city directory. The current URL structure is /category which is okay because we are only in one geography. However, we're now expanding to other cities so we are reevaluating the best way of structuring the URL.
The three options I have are:
- Pro: Follows the user around with the city after the root (like language)
- Con: Possible short-term traffic loss. Build page authority on new URLs
- Pro: SEO Benefit for terms: {city category}
- example.com/city/ would have to be a URL and a general landing page. This would mean that /category would no longer exist
- The website is currently set-up with /category but is now expanding beyond Toronto
- Pro: /category would still exist so no short-term SEO issues
- Pro: SEO Benefit for terms: {general category}
- example.com/category/ is already a URL and would display results based on proximity
- example.com/category (geo recognizes city)
- Pro: Clean URL
- Con: We're not Ticketmaster
I was able to find major directory sites with very strong SEO doing it all three ways above.
City First
- https://www.yelp.ca/c/toronto/restaurants
- https://angel.co/r/toronto/marketing/jobs
- https://www.redflagdeals.com/in/toronto/deals/c/cell-phones/
- https://www.bizbash.com/new-york/venues
Category First
- https://eventup.com/venues/new-york-ny/
- https://www.yellowpages.ca/search/si/1/Restaurants/Toronto+ON
- https://www.weddingwire.ca/wedding-venues/ontario
- https://www.livenation.com/cities/130465/toronto-on
No City in URL
-
I think you should consider how your users are interacting with your website and how they search for your services/products/locations and follow that. For example, Yelp is focused on local reviews. People will filter first to their city, then the category naturally. You would never filter down to restaurants first, because if you're in Huntington Beach, CA you really don't care what's in Portland, OR. If location is secondary to your product, then it makes sense to start with the category. For example, let's say you sell ATVs and other off-road vehicles and gear, but some showrooms only have ATVs while others also carry dirt bikes. Customers who are looking for a dirt bike care more about reaching a showroom with dirt bikes, so that category structure would be preferable.
Note that I'm assuming in both of the above examples that your navigation is following the structure of your website for usability purposes. In terms of structure, one way is not inherently better than the other from a ranking/algorithm perspective, but if your structure is confusing it can be detrimental to SEO. For example, outreach is a lot harder if you have a garbage navigation that contributes to poor user experience on your website. Any piece of Google's algorithm that measures user satisfaction with your website (Rank Brain, pogo sticking, etc.) will either directly or indirectly affect you depending on how user friendly your website is.
One last thing: in both instances you have the geography in the URL, so if you're hoping for a boost for local phrases from an exact match URL I think you're already tapping that. EMDs are nowhere near as effective as they were in years past, so I wouldn't make that my focus.
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
-
Local Landing Page Optimization and Multiple GMB Listings
Hello, We’re building out a site for our business that has close to 100 office locations in different cities. Many of these are ‘partner brands’ that we have acquired under our brand. Similar to a franchise model. We want to be able to help users find offices near their location. Each office will have it’s own landing page with a physical address and contact information. We know we’ll have to build out unique copy and markup customized to the office/location. We’ve already read through https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages as well. We’re also considering ‘silos’ to build out pages for each location. To preserve authority and avoid cannibalization; our thought was having each location as sub-folders off of our domain (i.e. domain.com/locations/Partner#1/). The other option would be using a sub-domain (i.e. Partner.Domain.com/) which we noticed competitors doing and treating each sub-domain as their own independent site. Is all of the above the correct strategy? Any further suggestions? Should we fill out a separate GMB for each office and should they all use the same brand name? (in other words “BrandA” vs. “BrandA” - Brooklyn Office). In addition to GMB; would each location need local listings created (also all under the same name)? Any help or insight would be very much appreciated. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Adding a Directory to Website
Hiya! So we have an odd request and we wanted to see if want we want to do will add any SEO benefit. We operate a printing/design firm in Houston, Texas and have been thinking of adding a directory to our website. It would sit on our top level domain www.website.com/print-directory, it would much be a like a yelp directory listing all the print, design, and bindery shops all across the USA. We want to expand our footprint online and and to boost to our position in other cities. For example Yelp is always the top spot when you search for (CITY) + (PRINTING)/(DESIGN) the yelp directories pull up first. Now... i know why this is with their DA/UR off the charts. We have vendor that will provide all the info/data/images of all businesses in the USA something around 5K business so. The design will mesh with our current design and look seamless with the current design.The idea is that we would populate and optimize all the city pages for all those cities and provide content on each major city. So we can optimize with H tags, keywords and interlink all the other pages plus not to mention we have a great blog section and plan on interlink that throughout website. The catch would be..... is that we would put our listing first, on top of all those other local shops. Maybe we would do this for all of them but maybe a few of our target cities. We would use our addresses and nothing would be faked. URL Structure www.website.com/print-directory/austin-texas/printshops/ABCPrinter/ Questions Would this confuse Google and cause some issues with our current SERPS? We do very well in our home city and don't want to jeopardize all our hard work. Or real harm or benefit just seems to confusing people? Could we get penalized? Content would be unique (except listing information)
Local Listings | | ListrBrands0 -
Which one of these URL's will rank the best?
Hello! Curious on the community's thoughts on linking best practices for the following hypothetical scenario: I own a site called landscaping.com and want to rank for the term "landscapers houston". I have a link on the top title bar linking to landscaping.com/landscapers-near-me with an interactive map with clickable links leading to different metro areas. What should be my link from that page to the Houston page? 1. landscaping.com/landscapers-near-me/landscapers-houston 2. landscaping.com/landscapers-near-me/houston 3. landscaping.com/landscapers-houston 4. landscaping.com/houston The main question is whether to include the parent page or not. i have 2 conflicting thoughts. 1. short URL's are better so dont include it 2. include it because that is the page that links out to it and it helps Google understand the site flow. Thanks, Ryan
Local Listings | | RyanMeighan0 -
URL Redirects - New Site Updates
We recently switched to a new site and I realized that our developer changed our locations page from /locations to /location. Our developer set the redirects correctly, so we most of the "juice" should still transfer fine. Even though most of the link strength should transfer to the new site, the language is misleading and according to MOZBar, the previously established links to /locations do not show up. The best option in my mind is to have the developer switch back to /locations and redirect /location. Do you feel this is the best option as well and is there anything I should be cautious about when doing this?
Local Listings | | Dions0 -
For Google's Structured Data, should I change my listings from Product schema to Local Business schema?
I was reading Google's Structured Data spec, and I'm considering changing the schema of our listing pages from the Product schema to the Local Business schema. Is this a good idea? To give you a little more info, the pages that I'm classifying are listings for physical spaces that our website rents out for activities, such as meetings. Here's an example of a listing: https://www.peerspace.com/pages/listings/550ddcde2f352d0800fc186b Our goal is to add the proper schema.org tags to the page so that our spaces show up in local searches, such as "meeting space in San Francisco." The problem is that when we add location microdata (addressLocality, addressRegion, etc.) to our current "Product" schema, Google tells us that "Products" can't have a location. However, we aren't quite a "Local Business" either, since we don't publicly share our space's street addresses—only the space's neighborhood/city/state for privacy reasons. As a result, we get an error from Google's Structured Data Tool as a "Local Business" page because "streetAddress" is required for Local Businesses. Should we switch to the Local Business schema anyway, even though we get structured data errors for streetAddress? Or is it better not to include the location information in the microdata so that we don't have errors? Does Google penalize you for incomplete tags? Any input is appreciated!
Local Listings | | stuartstein0 -
Does business name capitalisation count when making sure you have the same NAP across all directories ?
We've got a UK company with a company name like the following "ABC cars" (3 letter capitalised name followed by a word). With the Thompson local directory (one of the top 10 uk directories for local NAPs (and listed as a direct partner in Moz Local)) they dont allow you to have multiple capitalised letters in a company name. As far as i can see there are a few options to get around this : A B C Cars Abc Cars abc Cars (or abc cars) But none of them are ideal, as they dont match the actual name as listed on all of sites 100% in terms capitalisation. Which one of the above (or other) would be the best solution ? Does capitalisation count when people say your NAP must match ?
Local Listings | | mike8780 -
How to find which directories to submit my new site?
Hi Guys So as I'm just starting out, I have been told and read certain blogs that in the early stages I should submit my site to certain directories, only I would not have any idea which directories I should submit my site to, besides the few that I already know. Any idea how I could find this out? Cheers
Local Listings | | edward-may0 -
Multi-Location Listing Best Practices for Home Office, In-the-Field Positions, and Business Centers
Hi fellow Mozzers! Our marketing agency (based near SF) has partnered with 3 individuals in NYC, LA, and Seattle. I would like reflect our expansion on our site and local listings, but want to make sure we're on the up and up, since it's not a traditional brick-and-mortar expansion. Many people have used similar tactics in a black-hat way, so just want to make sure we don't get grouped in there. Is pursuing local listings in advisable in this case? In the Field/Home Offices - What is the best practice for listing a location in the field with home office - but no official B&M office? Business Centers - How does Google treat business centers where we have a part-time presence? (We legitimately use, can receive mail/phone calls, have an office share allocation, and host meetings in their boardroom.) Local Numbers and Addresses - Will a local phone number forwarding to our main HQ work? We'd prefer to filter all of our calls through our HQ since we have the infrastructure there. Other Considerations - Other than setting up our address and phone numbers on our site and major listings, is there anything else that should be top priority or concern? Thanks for your help here! Andrew
Local Listings | | Alaniz0