Root directory vs. subdirectories
-
Hello.
How much more important does Google consider pages in the root directory relative to pages in a subdirectory? Is it best to keep the most important pages of a site in the root directory?
Thanks!
-
Howdy nyc-seo,
This is a really good question with lots of implications. Although there's no single "right" answer, there are a few things you might want to consider:
- Subfolders are good for organizational purposes and as such can help structure your content. For example, SEOmoz puts all the blog content under seomoz.org/blog
- Subfolders can contain keywords that help with CTR and possibly with rankings. This may be good in certain situations, like in ecommerce. i.e. example.com/bird-feeders/hummingbirds
- That said, shorter domains tend to perform better in search results, and you want to avoid keyword stuffing in your URLs.
- Also, too many subfolders and you can run into some crawling issues. In these cases, it's best to keep your site architecture as "flat" as possible, without too many additional layers of sub-directories.
Some additional resources that may help:
- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
Thank you.
-
Google Does consider pages more important in the root dir as compare to sub directories as far as i think!
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
-
If some rooted domains providing back links to a website are from the same server, would it cause an issue?
My client with alliedautotransport.com has a brother that owns hundreds of relevant websites that has great content on there, however, if we have him do some back linkings from those pages from the same server, would it hurt the rankings or make a difference?
Technical SEO | | SeobyKP1 -
Personalized Content Vs. Cloaking
Hi Moz Community, I have a question about personalization of content, can we serve personalized content without being penalized for serving different content to robots vs. users? If content starts in the same initial state for all users, including crawlers, is it safe to assume there should be no impact on SEO because personalization will not happen for anyone until there is some interaction? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | znotes0 -
How should we handle re-directory links? Should we remove these links?
We are currently cleaning up bad links that were purchased by a previous SEO agency. We have found links on anonym.to pages that redirect traffic to our site automatically. How should this be handled? Should we remove these links?
Technical SEO | | Lorne_Marr0 -
Will adding a mini directory to our blog with lots of outgoing no follow links harm our authority and context
We are an adventure travel tour company, who run hiking, kayaking, biking adventures in several countries. We have a travel tour operator website with a blog in a sub folder of the site. We want to add a section/category in the blog itself with a hiking club mini directory, that lists all hiking clubs in 1 or 2 specific countries. The reason we want to do this is because the people searching online for these clubs are our target market and potential clients. We hope to rank for some of these searches, and encourage interest in our blog/website in the process. We also want the potential to build relationships with these clubs. The question I want to ask is: if we add say 100 to 200 listings, and make all outgoing links no follow, will this harm our page authority, reputation with SE's or pose any other risk for our site. The other question is, do you think that this will dilute the context of our content - as its slightly different in context to the rest of our site content. Are we better to set up a separate site for this purpose.
Technical SEO | | activenz1 -
Remove Directory
www.enakliyat.com.tr/detaylar/page-6255 www.enakliyat.com.tr/detaylar/page-6240 www.enakliyat.com.tr/detaylar/page-6253 www.enakliyat.com.tr/detaylar/page-6255 ..... ..... ..... We have so many page like this page and we want to remove all this page from Google search results. How can I remove from Google Webmaster Tools Help!
Technical SEO | | iskq0 -
301s vs. rel=canonical for duplicate content across domains
Howdy mozzers, I just took on a telecommunications client who has spent the last few years acquiring smaller communications companies. When they took over these companies, they simply duplicated their site at all the old domains, resulting in a bunch of sites across the web with the exact same content. Obviously I'd like them all 301'd to their main site, but I'm getting push back. Am I OK to simply plug in rel=canonical tags across the duplicate sites? All the content is literally exactly the same. Thanks as always
Technical SEO | | jamesm5i0 -
Wordpress & use of 'www' vs not for webmaster tools - explanation needed
I am having a hard time understanding the issue of canonization of site pages, specifically in regards to the 'www' or 'non-www' versions of a site. And specifically in regards to wordpress. I can see that it doesn't matter whether you type in 'www' or not in the url for a wordpress site, what is going on in the back end that allows this? When I link up to google webmaster tools, should i use www or not? thanks for any help d
Technical SEO | | dnaynay0 -
Singular vs plural in urls
In keyword research for an ecommerce site, I've found that widget, singular gets a lot more searches than widgets, plural AND is much less competitive. Is it better for SEO purposes to have the URLs (and matching title tags) in the catalog as /brass-widget.html, /steel-widget.html, etc., or /brass-widgets.html, etc.? I'm worried that a) searches for widgets will pass by the singular urls but not vice versa, and b) the singular form will strike visitors as bad grammar. Any advice?
Technical SEO | | AmericanOutlets0