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
-
Home page keyword in url
I have been looking into SEO for a few weeks now trying to perfect a homepage. Going through various sources on MOZ, and other examples out there on the internet, I keep seeing that you should have your keyword in the URL of the page. The homepage is the page most people want to rank the highest in google searches, however, you cannot put the keyword in the URL as most home page URLs are simply /. Should I actually make the home like this: www.example.com/key-word-example? I would imagine this would not be the normal for many users and would seem like it's not the home page.
On-Page Optimization | | Matthew_smart0 -
Keywords on Title Tag and Meta Description?
I have question regarding the use of keywords on title tag and meta description. I will take my website as example... Title Tag: Web Design Company & Digital Marketing Agency in Jakarta Meta Description: Coriate is a full-service website design & Internet marketing firm in Indonesia. We offer the best web solutions and SEO service in the industry. My questions: Is it good? Because I followed Blue Fountain Media. They don't use same keyword on title tag and meta description. You can see on title tag I use "web design" while on meta description I use "website design". Or should I use "web design" on meta description too? Blue Fountain Media doesn't use their company name on title tag. But when I search "Blue Fountain Media" on Google, it only showed their company name. How? Their title tag was "Website Design Company & Digital Marketing Agency in NYC | BFM". Is it necessary to use H1? Because as you can see on my company website Coriate there's no H1.
On-Page Optimization | | Japracool0 -
URL Keyword Variations?
I'm aware that keywords in the url aren't as effective as they used to be, but I'm still convinced that they do have a significant impact (based on results in one of the niches I'm in). My question is, will variations of keywords and "hidden" keywords have as much value as an exact keyword? For example, let's say that I'm trying to target the keyword "day." Will including variations like "daily" in the url work just as well? What about a brand name that includes the keyword hidden in its name, like "Dayest"? And, as a followup question, does including "stop" words have any effect? For example, if I'm trying to target the keyword "Day of the Month", would including "day" and "month" in the url be just as effective as including "day of the month"?
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Avoid Keyword Self-Cannibalization
<dl> <dt>Cannibalizing link</dt> <dd>Several links...
On-Page Optimization | | 678648631264
</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> <dd>How do I fix this?
</dd> </dl>0 -
How to design a site map page for users (not for Google)
I would like to design a site map for my visitors so they can have a quick view on the whole content of the website. 2 questions : 1 - is this kind of site map can help in terms of SEO ? 2 - if so, what are the best practices to design it ? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | betadvisor0 -
How to find competition for a particular keyword
Is there any operator to find the level of competition for a particular keyword in Google ? Is intitle:keyword a fair indicator ?
On-Page Optimization | | seoug_20050 -
Switching URL from keyword heaven to actual brand name?
Our client has a site, we'll say it's delicious-lemonade.com (That's an example.) Their brand name, however, is PowerSky. (That's an example, but the point is that it's the name of a technology, and has NOTHING to do whatsoever with being a drink. Someone would never guess what the product was, by the brand name.) The client has this domain name for a long time. The domain name itself is a top keyword for their product. We are building a new site for the client and have planned to use the brand name (PowerSky) as the primary domain, so PowerSky.com, with the product page being PowerSky.com/Delicious-Lemonade. And we are planning to redirect Delicious-Lemonade.com to PowerSky.com. However, we are concerned about the SEO hit the site is going to take. What recommendations can you make in this situation?
On-Page Optimization | | grayloon0 -
Disadvantages & Advantages for this e-commerce URL Structure
Hi all, Just a simple question. What's the disadvantages/advantages to using this URL structure for an ecommerce site: **Category structure: **/category **Subcategory structure: **/subcategory **Product structure: **/product Compared to the standard: /category/subcategory/product Thanks, Nick
On-Page Optimization | | NickPateman810