Service Keyword in URL - too much?
-
We're working on revamping the URL structure for a site from the ground up. This firm provides a service and has a library of case studies to back up their work. Here's some options on URL structure:
1. /cases/[industry keyword]-[service keyword] (for instance: /cases/retail-pest-control)
There is some search traffic for the industry/service combination, so that would be the benefit of using both in URL. But we'd end up with about 70 pages with the same service keyword at the end.
2. /cases/[industry keyword] (/cases/retail)
Shorter, less spam potential, but have to optimize for the service keyword -- the primary -- in another way.
3. /cases/clientname (/cases/wehaveants)
No real keyword potential but better usability.
We also want the service keyword to rank on its own on another page (so, a separate "pest control" page). So don't want to dilute that page's value even after we chase some of the long tail traffic.
Any thoughts on the best course of action? Thanks!
-
Awesome, thanks
-
two or three layers into it, hyphens vs. slashes is not as critical as too many hyphens in the primary domain name.
Personally, I believe it's better user experience to go with slashes rather than hyphens to clearly visually split out services vs. industries vs. company names. But that's just my preference and belief regarding usability.
-
That's what I needed to hear.
I think maybe a cases/pest-control/industry-company or industry/company structure will work nicely then. I can fix a good link structure no problem. Thanks!
-
the number of directories is pretty much illusionary - it's how many clicks to get to something that matters.
That's the key. It ultimately depends on how many case studies you're dealing with as to how you link to them.
Here's an example
Cases is a top level site-wide link.
On the Cases page, there's a description of each service, and a link within that description to that service's page.
Then on that service page, there's a brief snippet for each case study, where you group them on that page by industry type.
That's three clicks down to the individual case study. And in that scenario, you can go with the URL syntax I previously suggested.
So while the "folder structure" "appears" to be four layers deep
case-studies/pest-control/retail/company-name/
The linking methods above are only three deep. So you're totally within SEO best practices.
-
Ah, now that's a question! As far as I WAS aware it was always best to go for a "flat as possible" structure (so minimal directories). BUT... I've recently been informed (on these very boards, and from a very experienced pro) that it no longer matters as long as the linking structure is good, so there's plenty of links from strong pages, such as the homepage pointing in... so it will get crawled no matter how deep.
-
Alan, you've made me think of a question myself on that... you know the whole rule about not having too many hyphens in a domain, well how much of that extends to the rest of the URL/path after the initial domain?
Not sure I worded that very well. I mean, as we know, www.thing-blah-flip-flop.com is bad... and www.thing-blah.com is okay, but what about: www.thing-blah.com/flip-flop-give-a-dog-a-bone-is-this-too-many-hyphens-in-this-part-of-the-url-after-the-domain.html
I know there's tonnes of it about, but does it matter?
(Sorry to hijack the question lol, I assume it's still relevant though).
-
I suppose I meant the depth of the directories... Finding the page three or four directories in (I asked the same in response to Alan).
Thanks for all the help!
-
So when working with the directories, if we structure navigation so that you can get to a specific case study with two clicks, does that offset the depth of the directory structure? So, if it happened to be (hopefully not) cases/retail/pest-control/MI/Detroit/company-name, will the number of subfolders be an issue, as long as you could get to the page through two clicks from home?
-
How many is too many? I mean you don't want a directory per page or anything.
-
Yes definitely!
I assume if they're all landing pages then you wouldn't be targeting each page with the same keywords anyway, as that would be massive canibalization. You want to just assign 2 or 3 keywords to each page, then have one of them in the URL (the main one).
-
Would it make any sense to you to group them by service? so...
cases/pest-control/industry-company
Less spammy, but wonder about the impact of too many directories.
-
whether you do retail-pest-control or retail/pest-control - either is acceptable and as long as the sequence ordering is consistent you will achieve the same results.
So they should all be industry-service or service-industry.
-
The idea is that yes, they can all be landing pages. The pages as they're sitting now are driving some traffic from these long-tail keyword combinations -- we'd like not to lose that when we make the change.
Can the service keywords be variations? So, could it be retail-pest-control, restaurant-termite-control, athletic-ant-extermination? (samples again, of course)
-
Unless there's only one company in each combination of service and industry, having the company name or another differentiator as the last element in the URL is vital for individual page topical relevance. Company Names make the most sense from a user perspective.
-
I agree. Find a way to use no.1 and make it not spammy.
-
It depends on which is more important to you whether best practices dictate the industry first or the service type first, however generally speaking, they should both be in the URL.
So for example:
case-studies/pest-control/retail/company-name/
case-studies/retail/pest-control/company/name/
Some might argue that can cause long URLs, it's best practices, especially since Google is quite efficient these days when a site is structured properly like this, to be able to display portions of URLs most relevant to a search. So if the search was for pest control in the retail field, the URL in the search result might look like:
yourdomain.com/case-studies/retail/../pest-control/...
And doing it one of these two ways is the best way to build topical relationships, which in turn boosts the relevance of the site for the industries and services.
Oh - and you can do this and still have all the core content no more than two or three clicks from the top level.
-
I'd check others' opinions too, but mine is option 1 without dupe service keywords for the win... why must every page have that same keyword at the end, are they all landing pages you're optimizing?
Anyway, if option 1 without doing that then it's not spammy as far as I see and do, it's descriptive, allows link architecture to map site architecture... and you've got your keywords in there. Gets my vote, but yeah I'd wait for clarification or disagreement from others on that before taking any action
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
-
Changing Url Removes Backlink
Hello MOZ Community, I have question regarding Bad Backlink Removal. My Site's Post's Image got 4 to 5k backlinks from unknown sites and also their is no contact details on their site so that i can contact them to remove. So, I have an idea for which i want suggestion " If I change the url that receieves backlinks" does this will remove backlinks? For Example: https://example.com/test/ got 5k backlinks if I change this url to https://examplee.com/test-failed/ does this will remove those 5k backlinks? If not then How Can I remove those Backlinks? I Know about disavow but this takes time.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jackson210 -
Why a certain URL ( a category URL ) disappears?
the page hasn't been spammed. - links are natural - onpage grader is perfect - there are useful high ranking articles linking to the page...pretty much everything is okay.....also all of my websites pages are okay and none of them has disappeared only this one ( the most important category of my site. )
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mohamadalieskandariii0 -
Length for ranking, is it keyword dependant ?
Is the time it takes to rank keyword dependant ? in other word does it take more time for a page to rank on a keyword that has 5000 request a month than for a page to rank on a keyword that has 50 requests a month ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
2 pages optimised for same keyword... what should I do?
Hi, I have two pages appearing in positions 11 and 12 for the keyword: 80 btl mortgage. These are: https://www.commercialtrust.co.uk/btl/landlord-advice/mortgages/btl-mortgage-80-ltv/ https://www.commercialtrust.co.uk/btl/product-types/80-buy-to-let-mortgages/ Both pages are good, provide useful information and I would not wish to remove one of them. However, I am concerned that the reason neither one of the pages is on page 1 is because the keywords targeted on both pages is essentially the same. Should I reoptimise one of them for other variations of 80 BTL mortgage keywords? (e.g. 80% LTV Buy to Let Mortgage, 80 Buy to Let Mortgage, etc etc) Or, is there another solution I haven't yet thought of? I welcome your insights! Thanks! Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
Image URL Change Catastrophe
We have a site with over 3mm pages indexed, and an XML sitemap with over 12mm images (312k indexed at peak). Last week our traffic dropped off a cliff. The only major change we made to the site in that time period was adding a DNS record for all of our images that moved them from a SoftLayer Object Storage domain to a subdomain of our site. The old URLs still work, but we changed all the links from across our site to the new subdomain. The big mistake we made was that we didn't update our XML sitemap to the new URLs until almost a week after the switch (totally forgot that they were served from a process with a different config file). We believe this was the cause of the issue because: The pages that dropped in traffic were the ones where the images moved, while other pages stayed more or less the same. We have some sections of our property where the images are, and have always been, hosted by Amazon and their rankings didn't crater. Same with pages that do not have images in the XML sitemap (like list pages). There wasn't a change in geographic breakdown of our traffic, which we looked at because the timing was around the same time as Pigeon. There were no warnings or messages in Webmaster Tools, to indicate a manual action around something unrelated. The number of images indexed in our sitemap according Webmaster Tools dropped from 312k to 10k over the past week. The gap between the change and the drop was 5 days. It takes Google >10 to crawl our entire site, so the timing seems plausible. Of course, it could be something totally unrelated and just coincidence, but we can't come up with any other plausible theory that makes sense given the timing and pages affected. The XML sitemap was updated last Thursday, and we resubmitted it to Google, but still no real change. Anyone had a similar experience? Any way to expedite the climb back to normal traffic levels? Screen%20Shot%202014-07-29%20at%203.38.34%20PM.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wantering0 -
Long URL and Overly Dynamic
I'm having a lot of these "Warnings" show up. I use an Ecommerce site that automatically makes my URL. Is this something I should be concerned about?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | floridaoutdoorsrv0 -
URL for New Product
Hi, We are creating a section on our established existing website to display our new marketplace product & associated category pages. This marketplace will be a section of the site where our users can sell online training courses that they've created. It will be branded on our site as the Marketplace. Is it important to include 'marketplace' in the URL? Or would it be better to include a relevant keyword such as 'training-courses' instead? Or both? I've assumed I shouldn't use both as that would increase the length of the URLs and number of subfolders.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0 -
Renaming a URL
Hi, If we rename a URL (below) http://www.opentext.com/2/global/company/company-ecm-positioning.htm
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pstables
to http://www.opentext.com/2/global/products/enterprise-content-management.htm (or something similar) Would search engines recognize that as a new page altogether? I know they would need to reindex it accordingly, so in theory it is kind of a "new" page. But the reason for doing this is to maintain the page's metrics (inbound links, authority, social activity, etc) instead of creating a new page from scratch. The page has been indexed highly in the past, so we want to keep it active but optimize it better and redirect other internal content (that's being phased out) to it to juice it up even more. Thanks in advance!
Greg0