Data Structure, Indexing and Canonicals
-
I was wondering if anyone would be able to share some data structure/indexing best practices. We have a site that has pages designed to display National/State/City level data - all pages have slight variations in the data and descriptions - but we're seeing google index some of the city level data for national level keywords.
the URL structure is www.mysite.com/Country/State/City/Topic.html
For example - if the query was "what is the price of beans?" we're seeing Google pick up localized versions - i.e. mysite.com/US/CA/San_Francisco/price-of-beans.html - when it should be picking up mysite.com/US/price-of-beans.html
I've toyed with the idea of using the national level page as the canonical for the state/city pages - but I don't want to hurt state/city level keywords.
Because some of the pages have only slight variances - we are also seeing a lot of soft 404 errors - We're assuming that Google is seeing the pages as duplicates even though the content is different.
Any insight/suggestions are appreciated.
-
Of course anytime. If you would like to give me other examples for a look at the site I can give you a lot more information.
Glad to be of help!
Tom
-
Thank You Tom! This is a lot of information to digest - I will review and let you know if I have any additional questions - but I wanted to thank you for your prompt response!
-
I have underlined and italicized your questions and answer them the best I can this hour. I also gave you all references and I hope you will start using topic clusters and pillar pages or hub pages there are a few words these. Below I have outlined what I would do with the URL structure remember simple as possible.
Please let me know if you have any questions I know the information I'm giving you is a lot. I want to answer your question thoroughly and I know if you go through this you will have a much better understanding.
You want to create relevancy and make sure you're not going to deep or more than three clicks away from the homepage. You can also use tools like deep crawl to tell you the deep rank this is a score that is provided to show you the power of your internal links. You can use Oncrawls INscore to do the same thing.
Saving you a lot of the work described in the information below. At the end of the day, you want to build a pillar page and have topic clusters
- https://www.distilled.net/difference-between-url-structure-and-information-architecture/
- https://www.slideshare.net/dohertyjf/id2013-optimizing-your-websites-architecture-for-seo
- https://www.getcredo.com/talk-website-architecture-seo/
- https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76329?hl=en&ref_topic=4617741
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/pillar-page-examples
"National/State/City level data - all pages have slight variations in the data and descriptions - but we're seeing Google index some of the city level data for national level keywords".
Are you going after more than one country?
_www.mysite.com/Country/State/City/Topic.html _ ( do not use capitals when making URLs. It makes a separate URL entirely)
You do not to the country unless you are using hreflang? remember if you're not you can determine the country you want to target in Google search console the old version these are the instructions https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6059209?hl=en
-
remember mobile first means shorter URLs
-
hostname/2 letter country or language/state (abbreviation)/city
-
ideally/category = tx or (the state of Texas)/city
-
/products/category/sub-category/slug
-
Decisions about URL structures and decisions about the IA of your website both involve questions about grouping and hierarchies of pages. For example:
URL: should the path of an individual product be:
/product-slug
/products/slug
/products/category/slug
/products/category/sub-category/slug -
IA: how should we group our product pages and link between them:
Should there be a link “up” to the parent category?
How many “levels” of sub-category page types should there be?
How do we link between sibling products in the same (sub-)category?
How many products can we reach in (e.g.) 3 clicks from the homepage? -
then as you add more things to the city of Dallas you can keep them in a pillar page
the categories to track are:
- Page URL
- Cluster topic
- Subcluster (if applicable)
- Keyword to rank for
- Is it linked to the pillar page? (Y/N)
- Is it relinked (if applicable)? (Y/N)
- Any other other actions needed
- Has the other action been taken yet? (Y/N)
- Links out to pages 1, 2, 3, and/or 4
- Is it also a sub-pillar page (if applicable)? (Y/N)
( if you do not do business outside of the United States do not place the country's name in the URL)
If you are getting good results with the "state/city pages" referenced below and replace their conical tag it will not index
_"I've toyed with the idea of using the national level page as the canonical for the state/city pages - but I don't want to hurt state/city level keywords." _
If you replace the state/city pages with the national level pages and the state/city pages are ranking well they will cease to rank well because you will have no index them.
I will add more to this tomorrow I hope this is better for help,
respectfully
Tom
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
-
How about a No-index backlink in the eye of Google
I have a doubt - when I create a backlink as a part of SEO in some website when I rechecked the same couple of days after. It hasn't indexed and I checked its robots file. It showing **User-agent: ****Mediapartners-Google ****Disallow: ****User-Agent: * ****Disallow:**However, is this create any backlink support or just this for the purpose of not indexing in google.I make it simple -"Is this kind of backlink creation support my SEO activity or Not?" In this No-index website.
Local Website Optimization | | LayaPaul0 -
Checking subdomains/ site structure of a website for International SEO
Dear Moz community, I am looking into two websites for a friend and we want to understand the following: What is the site structure as per the sub domains? e.g currently it is .com/en/ or .com/ru/ or .com/zh/ Using the crawl report, each page has a en or other language version. I take it this means that we have to create copy, meta titles and descriptions for each of the languages even if the page is the same but in a different language? To avoid duplication of content would you suggest canonical tags to be put in place? To check hreflang mark up, I couldn't find anything in the code which makes me thing a script is automatically translating this? This is the first time I have started to look at international SEO and want to understand what to look for in an audit of exisiting sites. Thank you,
Local Website Optimization | | TAT1000 -
Discourage search engines from indexing this site AFTER a site launch
Hi, I have unticked "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" a few months before the initial release of my website. I don't want to be found by search engines until the official release (still a few months left). Do you think that ticking this box again will harm the website's long-term ranking or have any repercussion on the website? Do you have any additional advice to avoid being temporarily ranked until the official release which won't harm the website in SERPs? Thanks for your answers.
Local Website Optimization | | Juvo0 -
Multi Location SEO Page Structure
I am trying to optimize my website for multiple locations. I have setup a landing page for each location. Now I want to optimize services we offer at those locations such as floor scrubber rentals. I'm confused on the best approach for this for ranking locally. I offer the same equipment for rent at each location. So... should I have a link on the location landing page that takes you to an individual floor scrubber rental page for each location optimized for that locations city or should I have just one floor scrubber rental page and would I optimize it for both cities or just optimize it for floor scrubber rentals in general? I have many different categories like this that are offered @ both locations. If I do individual pages all the products and rates will be duplicate but I could change the areas we deliver to and description to be more geared towards that city.
Local Website Optimization | | CougarChemMike0 -
Should I use Rel-Canonicals links for a News site with similar articles each year
Our small town news site provides coverage in a lot of seasonal areas, and we're struggling with the current year's content ranking above previous years. For instance, every year we cover the local high school football team, and create 2-3 articles per game. We'll also have some articles preseason with upcoming schedule and general team "talk". We've seen where articles from past seasons will rank higher than the current season, presumably because the older articles have more links to them from other sources (among other factors). We don't want to delete these old articles and 301 them to the newer article, since most articles include information/stories about specific players...and their families don't want the article to ever come down. Should we rel-canonical the older articles to the newer one, or perhaps to the "high school football" category page? If to the category page, should we rel-canonical even the new articles to that main category page? Thanks for the help.
Local Website Optimization | | YourMark.com0 -
Which URL structure should I use?
samhillbands.com/bands/Charlottesville-VA-Wedding-Bands samhillbands.com/wedding/bands/Charlottesville-VA-Bands
Local Website Optimization | | brianvest0 -
Canonical for blog tag or search site
Dear all, I have problem with duplicate content on my site and crawled by seomoz as "duplicate content", might be i am not clear enough about how to put "canoncial" but the problem is with my site mostly on blog or tags or categories, so some link that actually different tags ....come with same result..so like: http://www.livingwordfreelutheran.org/news-events/blog/tag/ Gymnastics and http://www.livingwordfreelutheran.org/news-events/blog/tag/ God's Power It will show same result..the problem is,all are dynamic... and what i should put the canonical for that page? Both of link use same page or controller? If i put the canonical itself on each result it will be fix it? Or how? …and also I confusing how I put it also on search result? Like ?query=keywords that show same result? How I put canonical on there? Sorry if this duplicate question... I very very appreciate for the help…thank you! Best regards,
Local Website Optimization | | lwflc
Harrison0 -
Canonical for 80-90% duplicate content help
Hi . I seem to spend more time asking questions atm. I have a site I have revamped www.themorrisagency.co.uk I am working through sorting out the 80-90% duplicated content that just replaces a spattering of geographical and band styles eg: http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/greater-manchester/ 'manchester' being changed to : http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/oxfordshire/ etc So I am going through this slow but essential process atm. I have a main http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/ page My question is: Would it be sensible to (using Yoast SEO plug in) use a canonical redirect as a temp solution from these dup pages to http://www.themorrisagency.co.uk/band-hire/ Rather than remove them What are your thoughts as I am aware that the damage using a rel= could make it worse. Thanks as always Daniel
Local Website Optimization | | Agentmorris0