Similar URLs
-
I'm making a site of LSAT explanations. The content is very meaningful for LSAT students. I'm less sure the urls and headings are meaningful for Google.
I'll give you an example. Here are two URLs and heading for two separate pages:
- http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-1/q-10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10
- http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning II, Q10
There are two logical reasoning sections on LSAT 69. For the first url is for question 10 from section 1, the second URL is for question 10 from the second LR section.
I noticed that google.com only displays 23 urls when I search "site:http://lsathacks.com". A couple of days ago it displayed over 120 (i.e. the entire site).
1. Am I hurting myself with this structure, even if it makes sense for users?
2. What could I do to avoid it? I'll eventually have thousands of pages of explanations. They'll all be very similar in terms of how I would categorize them to a human, e.g. "LSAT 52, logic games question 12"
I should note that the content of each page is very different. But url, title and h1 is similar.
Edit: I could, for example, add a random keyword to differentiate titles and urls (but not H1). For example:
http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10-car-efficiency/
LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10, Car efficiency
But the url is already fairly long as is. Would that be a good idea?
-
This would be normal behavior for a brand new site--things will shuffle around for a good while and yes, even single-character difference in the URLs is enough differentiation.
-
Hope you don't mind me following up again. Search results by past month or year now show nothing, or just one link. If I do a straight site search, I just see four urls.
Is this normal search index behavior at this point, or is there any action I should take? Thanks.
I was also wondering if, based on my current setup, Google will eventually get skilled enough to distinguish results by small differences like "LSAT 68 game 2" vs "LSAT 65 game 2".
-
Those URLs won't inhibit your indexation or your rankings.
-
Thanks! That's a big relief.
Do you think the URL structure is ok as is? Anything I could do to differentiate them for google would, I think, make the site a bit worse for humans.
I do plan to differentiate the title tags more, as soon as I figure out how to make custom h1 tags on Wordpress.
-
Graeme,
Things are just working themselves out as far as indexation. You'll notice that all your pages are showing in the index if you use google's search tools/date feature and search for results from the past month or year:
New sites can take a month or two before showing consistent site:domain searches. BTW, you can leave off the "http://" part of your site:domian search.
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
-
Updating url name of a key page
One of my key pages has a url name that is completely non descriptive ('About') with no keywords in it that match the important content on that page. Should I create a new page with a proper url name and move the contents there (lose the authority of the current page), or create the url name only and redirect to the existing About page?
On-Page Optimization | | ppopov0 -
Optimizing a URL/menu structure
Hi Mozzers, I'm working on Content Strategy at my job, and I'm close to making some recommendations on short/long-term direction. While I'm there, I want to tackle the URL/menu structure (correct term?), which is a bit of a mess as pages have been created without any consideration for it over time. For ease, let's just say we have 3 main subdirectories of the site (Section A-C), and let's also say that section A also has 3 important subdirectories. From a UX perspective at least, we want a page to look like: example.com/sectionA/subsectionAA/page1 but currently it's example.com/page1 We have dozens and dozens of these examples. To complicate matters a little further, Sections B and C have been earmarked to be consolidated into a new section (D), as they're currently confusing and overlapping, and create roadblocks in user journeys. So a page that is, say: example.com/sectionB/page2 may well want to be: example.com/sectionD/subsectionDA/page2 I'm comfortable enough with technically doing this, as I'm experienced enough in Drupal and have an agency on hand too, BUT - I don't know if there are any SEO pitfalls I need to be wary of when I'm doing this, beyond resubmitting sitemaps, and the trickle-down effects of redirects. Any advice, wise forum? thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | joberts0 -
Is tracking code added to the end of a URL considered duplicate content
I have two URLs one with a tracking coded and one without. http://www.towermarketing.net/lets-talk-ux-baby and http://www.towermarketing.net/lets-talk-ux-baby/**#.U6ghgLEz64I ** My question is will this be considered as two separate URLs, will Google consider this as two pages with duplicate content. Any recommendations would be much appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | TowerMarketing0 -
Errors in URL´s
SEOMOZ is showing quite a lot of URL Errors like this: http://trampoliny.net.pl/akcesoria/pokrowiec-basic?frontend=1825cb1eea3af8ee6ee2d96617d32ff6 All these URL´s use the parameter "?frontend=". In webmaster tools we told google not to index this parameter. Unfortunately at the moment we cannot set this parameter as "NOINDEX". We also dont want to use a robots.txt file. How to get rid of the URLS in Seomoz?
On-Page Optimization | | drgoodcat0 -
Which is Best Practice for creating URLs for subdomain?
My website is related to education. We have created sub domains for all major colleges, universities & Entrance exams like Gre, Toefl ETC. for eg: amityuniversity.abc.com (Amity is Name of University ) Now if have to mention city name in URL as well (college is located in multiple locations) amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
On-Page Optimization | | rohanarora536
amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com Now my Q is can we use hyphens in sub domains if we have to add city name or shall we create without using any hyphens. In Directory structure we can always separate words with hyphens, can we follow same practice in subdomain as well Which is a best URL for subdomain amity-university-delhi.abc.com
amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
or amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com0 -
Image URL's have knocked my sub-pages down (WP)
I had most of my keywords within the top 10 for this site, some were even ranking in the top 5. For a possible minor boost, more-so to cover all the bases, I decided to add images to all of the pages, and they were uploaded as a gallery with most of the image file names being the same as the keyword. Thus, url's were created with our targeted phrases, extending off of the corresponding sub-page. After that, Google quickly picked up the url's to the images and began indexing them, when that occurred the sub-page which was to be the landing page, quickly tanked. Nothing else on-site changed besides the uploading of the images, so I'm sure they're conflicting and for whatever reason Google can't decide which page to index. The page that contains the images used, or the actual intended landing page. With WP I didn't see a way to not have them link to anything at all, and just be static when using a gallery, stock at least. So, my question is how can I quickly alleviate this problem and what should I do in the future to avoid this? I believe if I change link thumbnails to image file instead of attachment page, that should fix the issue... Then, I'll have dead URL's which I suppose I should 301 to the sub-page. Alternatively, is there a better solution that will work, I was also thinking about no-indexing the attachment URL's, but that doesn't seem to be an option.
On-Page Optimization | | JayAdams320 -
How important is it to include the target keyword phrase in the page URL?
If I want to target a keyword phrase to a particular phrase, but do not want to change the URL of that page, will that negatively impact my rankings? I am also wondering if I can get around it by creating a new, short URL that 301 redirects to the original URL. Would that be as effective as including the keyword in the original URL?
On-Page Optimization | | susannajbost0