What directory should a site go in (url structure)?
-
Hi All,
The is the first actual SEO campaign i've worked on and I had a few question about where the site should live on the server and url structure. The site is in WP and we're using Yoast SEO.
Anyway the site lives in a a folder called Coastal, which is a child of the WWW folder. So the permalink of the homepage is mcoastalwindows.com/coastal/. The URL is mycoastalwindows.com. The thing is I can still get to the homepage or any of the pages on the site by typing in the /coastal/. Another example is permalink mycoastalwndows.com/coastal/siding/ and url mycoastalwindows.com/siding/. The urls always display without the /coastal/, so I'm not too worried about people linking to them, but Yoast puts a canonical element to the permalink and always includes the /coastal/. Also I'm seeing that Google displays a lot of the urls with the /coastal/, which is an issue seeing as we don't link to the pages that way.
My original thought was to solve this at the source and just move everything out of the coastal directory, but the developer swears that it's more secure being in another folder especially with WP. What would you all do and what is best practice? Would you move everything out of the coastal folder, 301 re-direct, do something with. htaccess, or another solution?
Appreciate the input thanks!
-
Thanks for the help guys! Appreciate it.
-
Hi Mario,
The Mozzers above are right - your best move is to get rid of the redundant /coastal/ subfolder.
Your developer is incorrect. There is no security benefit to the subfolder.
I would suggest, to ensure security, that you instead have a thorough read through this guide to Hardening WordPress and follow these methods, as they will cover you for the vast majority of hack attacks.
Also, keep regular backup copies of your database if your hosting company doesn't do this automatically. Between that and backups of the website files, you'll be well covered in the event of a hack.
Best,
Mike -
Hi,
I agree with Jeff, developers seem to have an inherited paranoia problem with Word press and security. This can be solved by using a security plug in like word fence.
Word press is built with security in mind its weakness is 3rd party plug ins so beware when installing any always look for more popular properly supported ones.
Hope this helps
Brett
-
Hi Mario,
I agree with Jeff. You need to move your site up a folder.
You could write rules that remove the '/coastal/' from the canonical URL for the Yoast plugin, 301 redirect /coastal/* to /* etc - but this is really messy.
It's fine to have your site on the root domain....it's no less secure.
-
Mario -
The biggest issue I see is that your developer thinks that having content not in the www / home directory is somehow more secure. I think this is a red flag, as literally 20% of the websites on the Internet run WordPress (including my site).
While there are security issues from time to time that crop up, keeping up to date with patches, upgrades and server settings will mitigate this.
Best practice, hands-down, is to keep your home page content in the www folder, and not in the /coastal/ folder. In a sub-folder, it's not going to perform as well from an SEO perspective. And it could hurt you, as it looks like you might be trying to "stuff" in a keyword or two.
I would recommend moving the site into the www / home directory, and setting things up so that this is the primary URL. Yes, use 301 redirects on the older links so that you don't have 404 errors on the site…
Hope this helps!
-- Jeff
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
-
Just saw a competitor jump in rank by double digits, questioning my url structure choice now.
Currently I have for our big keyword oursite.com/big-keyword/ and clicking on a material type will be oursite.com/big-keyword/material-type/ Our competition has **theirsite.com/big-keyword/ **and when you click on their material type **theirsite.com/material-type-big-keyword/ ** The also have 20 some pages, while we have around 652 as a eCommerce site as well, not sure why they jumped so high in rankings, while their backlink structure is so small still and they have a DA half of ours. I'm in the middle of a site redesign and very close to restructuring the urls the way they have it, since it really seems to have worked well. How do you feel about that?
Technical SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Numbers in URL
Hey guys! Need your many awesome brains. 🙂 This may be a very basic question but am hoping you can help me out with some insights beyond "because Google says it's better". 🙂 I only recently started working with SEO, and I work for a SaaS website builder company that has millions of open/active user sites, and all our user sites URLs, instead of www.mydomainname.com/gallery or myusername.simplesite.com/about, we use numbers, so www.mysite.com/453112 or myusername.simplesite.com/426521 The Sales manager has asked me to figure out if it will pay off for us in terms of traffic (other benefits?) to change it from the number system to the "proper" and right way of setting up these URLs. He's looking for rather concrete answers, as he usually sits with paid search and is therefore used to the mindset of "if we do x it will yield us y in z months". I'm finding it quite difficult to find case studies/other concrete examples beyond the generic, vague implication that it will simply be "better" (when for example looking at SEO checklists and search engine guidelines). Will it make a difference? How so? I have to convince our developers of the importance and priority of this adjustment, or it will just drown in the many projects they already have. So truly, any insights would be so very welcome. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | michelledemaree2 -
URL Structure - Is this correct? Programming Advice Needed
Hello My father is having a website built called www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk. The site consists of different product categories as set out below 1.Engineered Wood, 2. Parquet & Reclaimed and 3. Prefinished Wood filtering further into colours 1. /lights-greys/, 2. /beiges/, 3, /browns/ and 4. /darks-blacks and then the brand name for example Vicenza. Example of a clean url **http://www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk/engineered-wood/lights-greys/vicenza/ ** Each and every url is unique Our programmer has put in place 301 redirects - http://www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk/engineered-wood/lights-greys-engineered-wood/vicenza/ - Is this really needed? It does not look clean and will appear like this is Google. This is a completely new site, a new start up business. I'm very confused as to why he has done this and concerned this method of programming does now follow "best practice". Can any programmer offer any advice? To get a better idea how the url structure is set out, I have attached a jpg image. Thank you Faye W09qswW.jpg
Technical SEO | | Faye2341 -
Switching site from http to https. Should I do entire site?
Good morning, As many of you have read, Google seems to have confirmed that they will give a small boost to sites with SSL certificates this morning. So my question is, does that mean we have to switch our entire site to https? Even simple information pages and blog posts? Or will we get credit for the https boost as long as the sensitive parts of our site have it? Anybody know? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | rayvensoft1 -
Hiding sub directory from a url string
I have been trying for a few hours now to hide a sub-directory from a url string on a joomla site using .htaccess every method i have found either has no effect or breaks the site. i am aiming to change all links with component in them: http://mysite.com/component/music/7335 to http://mysite.com/music/7335 I am using the latest Joomla 2.5 install but not sure how or if that affects anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Technical SEO | | omega0 -
Is it a good idea to make 301 from a site which you know google has banned certain keywords for to a new site with similar content
Here is a short question re. 301. I read Dovers article on how to move an old domain to a new one. Say you have been a little inexperienced regarding linkbuilding and used some cheap service in the past and you have steadily seen that certain keywords have been depreciating in the SERP - however the PR is still 3 for the domain - now the qustion is should you rediect with a 301 in .htaccess to a new domain when you know that google does not like certain keywords with respect to the old site. Will the doom and gloom carry over to the new site?
Technical SEO | | Kofoed0 -
Google search result going to a page that I did not put on my site
Hi, I am seeing a very strange result in google for my site. When doing a search for the term "london reflexology" my site comes up 18th in the results. But when I click the link or check the URL it shows up as: http://www.reflexologyonline.co.uk/reflexologyonline.php?Action=Webring This is not right at all. It looks like some sort of cloaking but I am not sure. I am new to SEO and I do not know why goole is showing this URL that does not exist on my site and of witch the content is totally wrong. Can anyone please help with this? See the 2 linked images for more details. It seems to me the site might be hacked or something to that effect. Please help.... jyJdP.png 71Mf4.png
Technical SEO | | RupDog0 -
Will 301 redirecting a site multiple times still preserve the original site value?
Hi, All! If site www.abc.com was already 301 redirected to site www.def.com, and now the site owner wants to redirect www.def.com to www.ghi.com - is there any concern that it's not going to work, and some of the original linkjuice, rank, trust, etc. is going to vanish? Or as long as the 301s are set up right, should you be able to 301 indefinitely? Does anyone have any experience with actually doing this and seeing good/bad/neutral results? Thanks in advance! -Aviva B
Technical SEO | | debi_zyx0