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?
-
Yes I have run a full report, but thank you very much for the resource, I'm sure others will find it very helpful.
From the report I've seen that our backlink profile seems to be our biggest issue of ranking, especially since we lost one of our biggest. And for a niche industry eCommerce site, it's very difficult to find backlink opportunities.
Hoping that after this site redesign we will of increased out DA and PA some, but won't see that change for a few more months at best.
Again thank you for the resource and response everyone!
-
Personally, I'd hesitate before attributing their jump to your URLs. Have you ever run a Full SERP Report on your keywords in the (Moz) Keyword Difficulty Tool? It might give you a sense of what you'll need to do to boost your rankings. There's a video on how it works here: https://moz.com/academy/competition-keyword-analysis
-
I do understand that it's not a good recommendation, however, our site hasn't been ranking better than 15 to 20 for longtails and for the major keyword, we rank 45 to 60 often, the biggest thing I see missing, is the keyword in the url structure, this keyword is basically our whole business. So seeing that this new site pops up, with 47 pages, ranked poorly for these keywords before and jumped from last place to 4 pages ahead of us in such a short period of time, with a DA of 9 and 10 less backlinks than us, and they have the keyword we want to rank for in all urls that matter, really makes you wonder, if all the standards being followed are really what works.
We also have a bigger social media following / engagement than our competition, and I've seen that really have no affect on rankings so far.
-
I concur with Logan - it is a risky business.
There is lots to review, so I am only making one suggestion which is contemporary to what i am seeing now. I would look more at how they are driving traffic. Is it referral traffic from facebook, etc. Several of my clients have had big jumps in the last month if they have strong referral traffic from high domain locations. I have seen no data on it, just a personal observation at this stage...
-
It's not recommended to change URLs for the sake of rankings. Check out this article for a comment straight from Google on this topic: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-urls-seo-17889.html.
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
-
Can redirect URL website also shown on the google ranking? and higher than the original website?
can redirect URL website also shown on the google ranking? and higher than the original website? For example, I create URL B which redirect to website A, and do good SEO on URL B, can URL B rank higher than my original website A?
Technical SEO | | HealthmateForever0 -
What would be the optimum URL structure for an inbound tour operator that sells tours in Jordan?
We are an inbound tour operator in Jordan. We have just redesigned and restructured our website. We sell tours in Jordan (Jordan Tours) and this is the primary keyword we are targeting. Our Jordan Tours page includes different tour categories. Each category takes you to a number of tours to choose from. What would be the best URL structure that will optimize our ranking for "Jordan Tours"? A. /jordantours/tour-type-category/tour-name B. /jordantours/tour-name C. /tour-name I have to admit that two weeks ago we launched the new site and went with option C. by intuition, aiming at reducing the clutter for a better user experience. So if C isn't the answer, is it worth making the change and applying 301 redirects after our new pages has been indexed for 2 weeks? Your insight is much appreciated. Thank you, Rakan
Technical SEO | | rakan0 -
Best URL-structure for ecommerce store?
What structure will recommend to the product pages? Lets make an example with the keyword "Luxim FZ200" With category in url:
Technical SEO | | gojesper
www.myelectronicshop.com/digital-cameras/luxim-FZ200.html With /product prefix:
www.myelectronicshop.com/product/luxim-FZ200.html Without category in url:
www.myelectronicshop.com/luxim-FZ200.html I have read in a blog post that Paddy Moogan recommend /lluxim-FZ200.html - i think i prefer this version too. But I can see that many of the bigger ecommerce stores are using a /product prefix before the product name. What is the reason for this? and what is best practice?0 -
I need help to define which is the best friendly url structure
Hi, I need some help to define which is the best friendly url structure for my new project, I'm in doubt for some cases, anyone could help me define which would be the best way? domain.com/buy-online/0-1,this-cool-model or
Technical SEO | | LeonardoLima
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model,0-1 or
domain.com/buy-online/0-1/this-cool-model or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model/0-1 or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model_0-1 or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model?Model=0&OtherParam=1 Thanks! Best Regards,
Leonardo Lima0 -
How to find original URLS after Hosting Company added canonical URLs, URL rewrites and duplicate content.
We recently changed hosting companies for our ecommerce website. The hosting company added some functionality such that duplicate content and/or mirrored pages appear in the search engines. To fix this problem, the hosting company created both canonical URLs and URL rewrites. Now, we have page A (which is the original page with all the link juice) and page B (which is the new page with no link juice or SEO value). Both pages have the same content, with different URLs. I understand that a canonical URL is the way to tell the search engines which page is the preferred page in cases of duplicate content and mirrored pages. I also understand that canonical URLs tell the search engine that page B is a copy of page A, but page A is the preferred page to index. The problem we now face is that the hosting company made page A a copy of page B, rather than the other way around. But page A is the original page with the seo value and link juice, while page B is the new page with no value. As a result, the search engines are now prioritizing the newly created page over the original one. I believe the solution is to reverse this and make it so that page B (the new page) is a copy of page A (the original page). Now, I would simply need to put the original URL as the canonical URL for the duplicate pages. The problem is, with all the rewrites and changes in functionality, I no longer know which URLs have the backlinks that are creating this SEO value. I figure if I can find the back links to the original page, then I can find out the original web address of the original pages. My question is, how can I search for back links on the web in such a way that I can figure out the URL that all of these back links are pointing to in order to make that URL the canonical URL for all the new, duplicate pages.
Technical SEO | | CABLES0 -
Overly Dynamic URLs
I have a site that I use to time fitness events and I like to post the results using query strings. I create a link to each event's results/gallery/etc. I don't need these pages crawled and I don't want them to hurt my seo. Can I put a "do not crawl" meta on them or will that hurt my overall positioning? What are my other options?
Technical SEO | | bobbabuoy0 -
Negative url name?
I have a new client who has the letters "BB" at the start of his url name, bbzautorepair.com. He was told by someone at Google Adwords that the letters "BB" in his url name could hurt him with Google rankings. Reason being that Google red flags anything or website to do with firearms, guns and ammunition. He was told that the letters "BB" could be mistaken or red flagged for "BB Gun". Seems a bit far fetched. Has anyone every heard of such a thing? Thanks
Technical SEO | | fun52dig
Gary Downey0 -
Suggested url structure for hierarchical data
For an existing web site we are developing a local info web site section where each area would get a review and information about local bars and restaurants. The site manages areas in the following hierarchy: Country > Broader region > Perfecture > Municipality > Neighborhood e.g. Italy > Northern Italy > Lombardia > Milano > Center Local Info pages would exist for all the above levels so you could have a page for Italy as a whole, a page for Lombardia, and a separate page for the Center of Milano. On certain countries there are many synonyms especially in the Neighborhood level but also a few in the Municipality level. We would like to build a generic SEF url structure/pattern that would be able to represent the above and be as short as possible for the purpose of SEO. 1. the obvious solution would be to incorporate the unique identifier of e.g. www.example.com/local-info/Italy-10
Technical SEO | | seo-cat
www.example.com/local-info/Milano-12363
www.example.com/local-info/Center-789172 but this does not represent the hierarchy and does not include the interesting keyword of e.g. Milano when looking at the neighborhood level 2. Another option would be to include all levels e.g. www.example.com/local-info/Italy/Northern-Italy/Lombardia
www.example.com/local-info/Italy/Northern-Italy/Lombardia/Milano
www.example.com/local-info/Italy/Northern-Italy/Lombardia/Milano/Center But this would end up with large URLs 3. I am thinking of another solution which would include the current level and its parent at any page. Not capturing the hierarchy very well but at least it includes the parent name for richer keywords in the url itself. www.example.com/local-info/Northern-Italy/Lombardia
www.example.com/local-info/Lombardia/Milano
www.example.com/local-info/Milano/Center 4. Or a hybrid where the first levels are always there and the rest are concatenated on a single segment www.example.com/local-info/Italy/Northern-Italy/Lombardia
www.example.com/local-info/Italy/Northern-Italy/Lombardia-Milano
www.example.com/local-info/Italy/Northern-Italy/Lombardia-Milano-Center any thoughts? thanks in advance0