Designing path structure - readability or keyword density
-
We are looking at redesigning our URL structure to accommodate our expansion. This gives us a chance to change the path, but we have found conflicting advice on readability vs. keyword density.
These are our three options.
mywebsite.com/s/birmingham/restaurants (Keep it short so that the keywords dominate the path)
or
mywebsite.com/search/birmingham/restaurants (Accurately describe the content on the page)
or
mywebsite.com/top/birmingham/restaurants (Be a bit spammy and include a word often associated with our inbound searches)
Does anyone have any experience on what works best?
-
Thanks for all responses, extremely useful.
-
Hi -
Here in this case, it comes to readability.
All have, Birmingham and restaurants are the 2nd and 3rd level subfolder, so they have the same impact.
In my view, it should be as simple as site.com/restaurants/birmingham, where the restaurants your main identifier of the keyword is closer to TLD.
Zomato.com does it very good, you can checkout that as well to inspire yourself.
Also booking.com is to some extent good.
If have to choose between the 3, i'd go with the first one
K
-
Hi,
I think your first option is the best. This is why I think so:
- I like short URLs - they look nicer and are less likely to be miss-typed
- The word 'search' is not one of your keywords, so unnescessary in the url
- You're right that using 'top' could be a 'bit spammy' - Also, if people's search behaviour changes and they stop searching for 'Top ...' then you may come to regret putting all your eggs in that basket (as it were). I personally wouldn't take the risk.
If you do change the URLs, make sure you do proper 301 redirects from page to page (e.g. old Brirmingham Restaurant page should forward to the new version of it, NOT just the homepage). Also, submit your xml via WMT, and with any super-important pages you can use the Fetch as Google tool which allows you to submit the page to Google's index.
Good luck with your site overhaul!
Amelia
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
-
Ranking keywords
Is there a way to utilize our currently ranking keywords. I don't think editing the url would be a good idea. What areas of these pages should we improve? Or is it better not to do anything.
On-Page Optimization | | Timberwink0 -
Changing Url structure to incorporate Woo Commerce
Advise needed please We have rankings coming along nicely with a website that uses page content but we now need to start online shopping with woo commerce The url structure has always been a bit of a mess, but its quite in depth We are looking to move small paragraphs about each product cat (formerly put on Pages) information into the Product Category and then the Product information into the product page and redirect the old urls to the new urls. It would mean updating the permalinks also - My concern if there is less leverage with product categories - do these rank just as well as pages, are we going to see our rankings change dramatically in doing so? Added to that - is it best doing this change gradually or all at once (like staging site to get the set up ready) and then pushing live
On-Page Optimization | | KellyDSD860 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A2 -
I have seen zero movement in my Google keyword rankings.
I have seen zero movement in my Google keyword rankings, but I have seen movement on the other search engines. I must be doing something wrong. Any tips?
On-Page Optimization | | LindaWolfe0 -
The need of two-keyword optimization in the same page
Hi there! Due to the business model of my company I have to optimize two keywords in one page. I just asked about this question before and someone told me thant as long as they refer to the same concept and have almost the same "meaning", it is possible. The problem is how to face it up. I mean, there's one H1 label, one title, etc....and what's the "policy" of key distribution in the content in order to priorice these keywords? What you guys recommend? many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
How to fix keyword self-cannibalization?
page in question: www.bison-builders.com/lots-plans/bison-meadows-lots-1-6/ This page is the landing page for 6 custom home lots, available via Bison Builders. I fixed the overstuffing of 'Bison Meadows', it was on all image title, alt, etc. Should be right around 15. We are using 'Bison Meadows' as a keyword, because that's the name of the custom community. I don't want to change the names of the links, and I don't want to change the name of the keyword. How do I fix this self-cannibalization? FYI, I was thinking of directing all canonical URLs for individual pages to this page, but will wait til I know how to fix this first... Thank you! Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization Easy fix <dl> <dt>Cannibalizing link</dt> <dd>"Bison Meadows Lot 1", "Bison Meadows Lot 2", "Bison Meadows Lot 3", "Bison Meadows Lot 4", "Bison Meadows Lot 5", and "Bison Meadows Lot 6"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>It's a best practice in SEO to target each keyword with a single page on your site (sometimes two if you've already achieved high rankings and are seeking a second, indented listing). To prevent engines from potentially seeing a signal that this page is not the intended ranking target and creating additional competition for your page, we suggest staying away from linking internally to another page with the target keyword(s) as the exact anchor text. Note that using modified versions is sometimes fine (for example, if this page targeted the word 'elephants', using 'baby elephants' in anchor text would be just fine).</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Unless there is intent to rank multiple pages for the target keyword, it may be wise to modify the anchor text of this link so it is not an exact match.</dd> </dl> <a class="more expanded">Minimize</a>
On-Page Optimization | | IngridWood0 -
Keyword Density Tools
Does anyone have recommendations on the best tool(s) to use to check the keyword density of each page of a website? I'm not sure if SEOmoz has such a tool.
On-Page Optimization | | webestate0 -
Best URL Structure For Products That Are The Same
I know that the url structure is very important for seo preferably using the keyword. But is it okay to have the same url with the product number at the end ? Each of our products have a name with a product number. Or will this cause to many similar urls? or if the folder is the name of the product that needs to be optimized, can the page just be called the product number? Example: Say you have a 20 different product lines and they are all catagorized in the appropriate folders, and need to be optimized for the actual product name. XXX (folder name ) WWW-PR-123 WWW-PR-1234 WWW-PR-12345 WWW-PR-123456 what would be the best url structure? Can they have the same begining? The product name? something like: www.example.com/xxx/www-pr-123.php www.example.com/xxx/www-pr-1234.php or www.example.com/xxx/pr-123.php www.example.com/xxx/pr-1234.php
On-Page Optimization | | hfranz0