URL structure for multiple cities?
-
Hi, i am in the process of setting up a business directory site that will be used in a number of cities, though i am initially launching with only one city.
My question is, what is the best URL structure to use for the site and should i start using this URL structure from day one?
At the moment i am using www.mysite.com.au as my primary website where it contains all listings for the the one initial launch city.
Though to plan for the future i was considering this URL structure:
so for example, if i launch in the city Sydney initially then all website traffic that goes to www.mysite.com.au would simply be redirected (302 temp redirect?) to www.mysite.com.au/sydney.
When i expand to other cities www.mysite.com.au would simply be a "select your city" screen that then redirects to the city of choice (similar to www.groupon.com page).
How would doing a 302 redirect from www.mysite.com.au to www.mysite.com.au/city impact on SEO for the initial launch? Or should i just place this on the root domain since no other cities exist at the moment?
-
If it's just a few cities, it's probably not a big deal either way, and the search results could give you a landing page. If you really plan to expand down the road, I think I'd go with your alternative approach, at least for now. Keep Google on the main site, and you can let users select their appropriate city page (and cookie that).
If, down the road, you've got a good structure and solid back-links, and you want to open up the city pages to crawlers, you can always change that later. It's not black-and-white, but in 2012 I think it's best to go out narrow and really focus your link profile on your core pages, expanding once you've got the authority and history to make it work.
-
Thanks Peter.
Just a question in regards to your first point (1). Each city page page will simply have a search box. The results will be filtered to only return entries for that particular city (as derived from the URL - ie Sydney filter will be applied if URL is www.mysite.com.au/sydney).
I am now thinking the best option for this setup would be to have the search box located on the root domain www.mysite.com.au (and no longer have the city pages), and simply have a drop down list box next to the search box to allow the city filter to be applied. What do you think of this idea?
I could then also use cookies to set the default value of the city select list based on previous visit selection.
-
Unfortunately, it's a tricky situation, and I'm not sure there's one "right" answer. I think some of the feedback in the comments is definitely accurate, but it depends on the circumstances. There are two big factors to consider:
(1) It's probably best not to spin out hundreds of city pages, if they're just a template with a few geo-targeted words changed around. This used to be common practice to rank for long-tail terms, but since Panda, it's really gotten to be risky. If Google sees hundreds or thousands of thing pages, your entire site could be penalized. Meanwhile, those thin pages don't generally rank well, even best-case.
(2) The 302-redirect is going to leave link-juice at the home-page, but still allow Google to crawl the city-based pages. If you're using geo-location, it probably doesn't matter whether you use a 301 or 302, honestly, because Google is going to come via US IPs and it will never trigger an Australian-based location. So, you need to make sure your solution works for the crawlers and decide where you want them to land.
-
Ok i see.
Does having a much heavier weight on the city page (ie Sydney), rather than the root domain have much of an impact if people are searching for "[business name] Sydney"? I guess www.mysite.com.au/sydney would be shown in search results rather than www.mysite.com.au?
Are you suggesting that having a "city selection" page hosted on www.mysite.com.au would be the best option from an SEO perspective? (Even though there is only one city).
Thanks
-
You wouldn't get penalized for the 302. 302's normally aren't used because they don't pass along link juice but in this case that is not your concern. What might create an issue for you is that people will like your site and then choose to link to it, but it will most likely be the Sydney link structure if that's the route you go, most people copy and paste the URL and then use it as a link. Then when you redo all your structures you will have one city page with a crazy amount of link juice but a main URL with no link juice. You won't be able to fix it either with a 301 because then no one will be able to see your Sydney page. You will create a problem for yourself in that sense. Hope this helps.
-
HI, first i will support other answers and will not recommend the redirect from the same reasons.
regard the URL i will like you to look at this site that i am working on www.123locksmith.com and see the way we did the city pages.
working great with this system and this site is up in major keywords and city, i will recommend you have some changes in the content and not just change the city name.
i will recommend to start with the city pages from day one because if you will work on a strong DA by the time you get to this pages it will be easy to work on.
hope that help you
Mike
-
Plan for today didn’t make sense to me and as far as the URL structure is concern you should have to have ea long term planning for that.
If I would be at your place I would be happy to see the URL structure which is somewhat similar to you. For example I launch a bakery business in Melbourne my ideal URL should be:
this way the URLs will be organized and user can easily find where his business can be available, even by looking at the URL.
As far as your idea of 302 redirections is concern I might not support that so if redirection is necessary at any point then go for 301 permanent redirections.
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks for the reply Joel.
Since there will only be one city initially, is there any negative impact (in terms of SEO), in doing a simple redirect from www.mysite.com.au to /sydney?
-
I'm a believer in planning for the future. So I would go with www.mysite.com.au and then have the city option of Sydney and with a comment "more cities coming soon" this way you wouldn't have to worry about having a 302 redirect or changing domains later. Hope this helps good luck.
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
-
Looking for list Pro's & Con's of removing Folder from URL?
Hi We have a sub-folder ("/shop-by-department/") which is pretty much useless on our site and I'm looking to remove it. But the team want a list of the Pro's & Con's in doing so. So for example I'll be changing www.example.ie/shop-by-department/furniture/beds/product-a to www.example.ie/furniture/beds/product-a I know there will be an intial hit as Google adjusts to the change but think it's definitely the way to go. I was lookng for a complete list of the Pro's & Con's to send onto the team. It'll be going to the traditional marketing (print, radio, etc.) too so can ve top-level points too. Hope you can help! Thanks
Web Design | | Frankie-BTDublin0 -
Multiple redirects hurt?
In the process of website migrations and redesign, we create & replace new pages which will lead to multiple redirects unknowingly. Like: page A to page B & page B to page C. Will these kind of multiple redirects hurt? I would be happy to hear what happens with WordPress with this scenario in particular.
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Using Multiple links/names for the same product?
I am being asked to change these product links on the home page: Home/Condo
Web Design | | RoxBrock
Watercraft/Boat to Home
Condo
Watercraft
Boat (Along with several other product links) How does this affect the customer experience/usability, and SEO? Is it a good idea or is it confusing? Thank you.0 -
Is there a way to redirect URLs with a hash-bang (#!) format?
Hi Moz, I'm trying to redirect www.site.com/locations/#!city to www.site.com/locations/city. This seems difficult because anything after the hash character in the URL does not make it to the server thus cannot be parsed for rewriting. Is there an SEO friendly way to implement these redirects? Thanks for reading!
Web Design | | DA20130 -
What structured data would you recommend marking up for a companies 'service'?
Hi, I'm finally starting to use structured data in my clients sites now that Google has embraced it so much. I have a client that is a cosmetic physician and has associated services. I thought it would be beneficial to markup each service according to http://schema.org/Service I'll be doing a similar thing with a new local surveyors website too. I'm just wondering if it is worth doing and what Schema properties would you recommend using. For the cosmetic physician I'm thinking of: description
Web Design | | morktron
name
url
sameAs
provider
serviceArea
serviceType0 -
What's the best way to structure original vs aggregated content
We're working on a news site that has a mix of news wires such as Reuters and original opinion articles. Currently the site is setup with /world /sports etc categories with the news wire content. Now we want to add the original opinion content. Would it be better to start a new top /Opinion category and then have sub-categories for each Opinion/world, Opinion/sports subject? Or would it be better to simply add an opinion sub-category under the existing news categories, ie /world/opinion? I know Google requests that original content be in a separate directory to be considered for inclusion in Google news. Which would be better for that? Regarding link building, if the opinion sub-categories were under the top news categories, would the link juice be passed more directly than if we had a separate Opinion top category?
Web Design | | ScottDavis0 -
New URL Strucutre
Hello all! I'm new to SeoMoz and would like to introduce myself and say thanks for all of the great content. This is definitely the premium website I have been looking for. My question is regarding a new URL structure that will be implemented with our website redesign. We are looking to make our URL's more user and SEO friendly. We will be using 301 redirects to reroute our existing structure when the site goes live. Background
Web Design | | kauffmantire
I work in a company that retails automotive tires. I would consider class (performance, off-road, highway, etc.) to be the most important category, but based on our analytics we receive much more traffic from brand terms. This is most likely because our customers are not educated on specific tire classes and generally do head term searches or search by brand / product name. Ultimately the will have to buy from a certain class based on driving habits. Link and URL Structure
(Parameters) The model page includes links to individual tire size specific pages. We are using the model page as our primary SEO page because the only difference from the 5 - 60 tire size specific pages per model will be the tire size itself. This means that all of the remaining content will be duplicated multiple times over. All links to the tire size specific page from the model page will have a rel="nofollow" attribute attached to it. All tire size specific pages will have a rel="canonical" tag pointing back to the model page Out of the following structures, which would you consider to be the best format: 1. http://www.company.com/category/brand/model
or
2. http://www.company.com/brand/category/model
or
3. http://www.company.com/tires/category/model We will append the specific tire-size to the URL on the item specific pages. Any other options or strategies will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!0 -
Javascript changing URL - Thoughts?
So, our developer just created a player at the bottom of this site I work for. It's not really important what it is. The thing is, when you go to our home page now, the javascript changes the url from www.site.com to www.site.com/home It's not actually redirected or anything (no 301, it's just the javascript doing this), but I'm worried that if someone links back to our site they're going to surely pull that URL to point back to, which is wrong. Also, when you go to a category, the URL changes from www.site.com/category to www.site.com/home#category. Again, it's not a redirect but I'm still worried people will link back to this since it's on the entire site now... I'm suggesting that we turn off this new feature until we find a workaround. I just wanted to confirm with you guys that this is best. Thanks
Web Design | | poolguy0