URL Structure for a shopping website
-
I have a website which currently has a bad URL structure. I would like to change it.
Proposed URL Structure:
www.website.com/category/men/jackets
www.website.com/category/men/jackets/product-name
Is it a good URL structure?
I have seen some other website uses their product name right after their root domain.
I have also seen another structure which changes like below:
www.website.com/womens-jackets/products
www.website.com/mens-jackets/products
Which is Good URL structure for SEO & users?
-
Thanks István Keszeg & Gaston Riera. That helps a lot.
-
Sorry, I've forgot to detail that case:) Thanks for pointing it out.
-
+1 to /category/subcategory/product
Also, addressing the case where a product can live in several categories, those should be taken care of, either redirecting all to the correct or with canonicals.
Hope it helps.
Best luck
GR. -
Hi there,
Regarding website.com/category/product
What you have to take into consideration: if a product is going to be placed in more than one category, then this product is going to be indexable on more than one URL paths. (Like Gaston mentioned below, in this case you need to take care of duplication, which you can do with canonical links or redirection to one path).
For example, let's say you have a product which is in both cat1, subcat1 and cat2. This way you will have minimum 3 available paths to the product:
This means that on product level you will have to deal with internal duplicated content. This is why usually prefer to use website.com/product url path (IMO).
Regarding the /category/subcategory/ vs /category-subcategory/ this is really a technical question. How "deep" is going to be your website? Do you want a flat infrastructure?
I usually prefer the /category/subcategory/ structure, because of the idea of contents of an e-commerce website should be build up with a structure based upon content silos, where from general you move towards the specific (indifferent of how we achieve this, with subcategories or filters within categories). I really hope it helps you answer your questions.
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
-
Infinite Scroll and URL Changing
Hi, So my website is having an issue indexing. Much like other sports sites like ESPN or MLB or a variety of others my site changes the URL as you go down the page. So if you go on a news article and continue scrolling you'll go to another news article. I believe that this is creating errors in Search Console with the article being given an error of being "too long". I don't know how to keep this infinite scroll and url changing which increases my pageviews and eliminate the errors. Can someone help?
Web Design | | mattdinbrooklyn0 -
Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL
Recently took over managing a site for a non-profit which was using the dreaded Wix. Switched over to Wordpress but now Google still has the old URL's with the hashtag. Can't forward them in .htaccess and don't want to add javascript for fear of slowing down load time. I found a solution that seems like it will take hours and hours of work. I found the solution at http://www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/ but it seems like it would take hours with all the URL's. I submitted an XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools. My question is, how serious could this effect SEO for my site? Google accepted the new sitemap but still has the old URL's in SERP. How long does this generally take to remove? Will the hashtag URL's penalize the site for duplicate content? If so is there a way to tell Google the homepage without hashtags is the page with original content? Sort of like the rel=canonical tag which I know wont work as the hashtag URL's all redirect to the homepage so they will all have the tag. Does Google ignore the hashtag? Could there even be a benefit to this, possibly the homepage getting more page authority due to the redirects? How serious is this? Thanks in advancing.
Web Design | | limited70 -
How would a redesign, content update and URL change affect ranking?
Hi guys, I have a question that I suspect there is no simple true or false answer to, but perhaps someone has done the same thing as we're pondering wether or not to do? We're taking over an existing site that ranks very well on all the important keywords and is obviously very well liked by Google. The site is today hosted on a sub-domain (xxx.domain.com). When taking over, we'll have to redesign the site and recreate most of the content on the site (unique). The site structure, URLs, incoming links etc. will remain exactly the same. Since we are recreating the site, we also have the opportunity to move the site off the sub-domain and on to the main domain (domain.com/xxx - 85/100 Moz rank) and do a 301 Permanent Redirect on all old URLs. Our long-time experience is that content on the main domain, ranks way better than the sub-domain. The big question is wether or not Google will punish us for both changing the content and the location of the site at the same time? Cheers!
Web Design | | mattbs
Matt0 -
Parallax Websites
Hi Just wanting to see what peoples view is on Parallax websites (all content on 1 page separated into sections), and does Google see them as a good user experience or would they be seen as difficult to read for a search engine i.e not enough content?
Web Design | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
New website and new domain
Hi, We have a domain with current e-commerce site on, about 5 years old. We have a new website being built with a different company and a new domain name. We are transferring our old domain over to new provider and 301'ing the domain to new domain. However, we can not take the current website with us, so we lose all our links/pages etc.. How important would it be to take a wrap of our current website to keep all the pages alive? Is there anything we can do so oldurl.com/brand/tshirt/ doesnt lose its rank? Can we 301 individual pages if we dont have the actual website? Just the domain name. Any help be great. Thanks
Web Design | | YNWA0 -
Website URL Structures - Which does Google prefer or does it matter?
Which URL structure does google prefer..............OR DOES IT REALLY MATTER? Option A www.example.com/services/service#1 - this is the default that wordpress uses Option B www.example.com/service#1
Web Design | | webestate0 -
Looking for a website review.
Hello, Our web team and I have been building a e-commerce website for the past couple of months. The project is nearing its end and I was just wondering if there are any big issues on this website that jump out at anyone, besides the fact that it hasn't been submitted anywhere or there has been no link building done yet. The website is wheelchairparts.com All feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated! Thanks!
Web Design | | Mike.Bean0 -
Website Blog causes duplicate pages
Hello, I added a blog to my website, which is hosted at weebly. I was told this would drive traffic but I have actually fallen way, way down in Alexa rankings. When I ran a campaign here, the results show over a 100 errors, all to do with the website blog. It states they are duplicate pages and titles. I dont see a way to rename the pages. Am I better off getting rid of the blog? Thanks
Web Design | | Gardengirl0