Question about web site structure
-
Is there an SEO advantage for individual pages to be in sub folders vs not being in a folder? Of course site managemnt is easier with folders if you have 100;s of pages...clearly a shorter URL is easier for humans to naviagte.
vs.
-
I'm not sure I understand your question John, and the second URL is a 404. Could you expand your question a bit? Thanks!
-
Hi Keri and community,
So is it a link juice mistake on my site
www.shearerpainting.com/recyclepaint.index
I created the sub folder and landing page specifically for a new campaign "recycle paint" with video and content and links
-
I've gone ahead and marked this thread as answered, even though we haven't heard from John. Thanks for your great recap!
-
Hi John. I'm surprised this question isn't considered answered yet as the group seems to touch on all the bases. Here's a recap:
- Richard Getz highlights the ability to add keywords via folders but cautions against adding too many folders (historically due to crawling issues).
- David Lenehan cautions against too many folders causing duplicate content issues and ungainly website architecture.
- Keri Morgret highlights the usefulness of folders in Analytics to help track specific portions of content. The moz also discusses this in their excellent post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-powerful-analytics-tip-every-website-should-employ
"By segmenting out traffic to URLs that include /blog/ and those that include /ugc/ (YOUmoz), we can see when/where/how each section is rising or falling in traffic and contributing to the overall site's performance."
- Fatwallet cautions against spam negating benefits in either and emphasizes linking as driving more value regardless.
- Aaron Dicks recommends a CMS to give you strength and flexibility in organizing your content.
- While Pashmina reminds us of the usefulness of redirects when curtailing duplicate content or sending lost link strength to a page in greater need.
And finally since you were asking about domain\folder\page vs domain\page you're not going to run into subdomain issues. If a short folder category makes since in analytics it's definitely worth it. Just look at the URL above... we're in the 'q' folder. Hope that helps.
-
John,
Did any of these responses answer your question, or do you still have more questions? If you could add a comment or mark a helpful response, that'd be great!
-
There are a lot of answers on here with regards to .html files and folders. The most efficient and easily-manageable solution here is to migrate to a good Content Management System that can handle categorys and page parents (I prefer Wordpress)
Products can be categorised one or two deep (suggested max for Search Engines) and URL's will reflect the product description. I.e is the item is a widget or type foo, being in url www.example.com/foo/widget/product-name would be a great structure, as both foo and widget might be part of the search term for the product, and they will also appear on the product page naturally as you describe the product.
This also helps the Keyword cannibalisation problem, as you will be able to see through administration that there are multiple pages doing the same thing.
Essentially in answer to your question, go one or two deep if it will help your users. Don't go more than 2 as Search Engines may not crawl that far if you have a young/non-authorative domain.
Hope this helps,
Aaron
-
I am gonna vote up with 1 folder level. There is no evidence of it, but its possibly that the juice would not pass through as well if there are many directories/sub-directories
-
I agree with Richard and Joel. No more than 3 levels deep for categories. And I'd like to add, that it's good to create redirects for alternative categories or links. If a product can belong to 2 sub categories, have both links work. eg. domain.com/category/subcategory-primary/product.html -> would be main link domain.com/category/subcategory-secondary/product.html -> would redirect to above And while this is not necessarily an SEO advantage, having clean, short and organized categories helps create a good user experience and easy way finding for your users and leads to higher conversion rates.
-
That's a really good point.
I'm glad GA form fields accept regular expressions
-
Don't overlook the usefulness of folders when it comes to Google Analytics. Lunametrics has a post on designing a site that is friendly with GA at http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/09/22/designing-google-analytics-friendly-site/.
-
Google is going to trust your link structure more than the subdirectories in the url.
Make your urls clean, try to get a good keyword in there, but DON'T stuff and make them obnoxious and spammy.
There IS typically an advantage to a flatter architecture, but if the content is rich and the longer tail potential is high a deeper architecture will serve just fine.
-
Too many sub folders isn't good for SEO and you can have problems with duplicate content. Personally I would go with the first option. I try to ensure products have the following URL structure
store.com/product-laser-gadget.html
You need to avoid the following situation;
store.com/gadget/product-laser-gadget.html
-
Thanks Joel can you give me an example?
www.donuts/glazed/chocalate glazed
-
If Susan does not get you some backlinks, nothing will
-
Richard you are going to laugh...so I just made a new video and added sitemap, and I am jacked up about getting another keyword in so i made
http://www.shearerpainting.com/PaintColors/susanmarinello.php
but my HTML is so poori cant figure out menu's page architecture, blah , blah so I tempoarily put this up:
-
None that I can think of.
If you have categories, it not only allows the use of another keyword, but you get to make a landing page for that keyword. domain.com/category/index.php would be used for keywords and also redirecting link juice once a product was deleted as explained here: (scroll to the bottom)
http://www.seomoz.org/q/what-do-you-do-about-links-to-constantly-moving-pages
When you link build, you can use these landing pages to point links to. Also good for link baiting.
There are several reasons to have these types of pages. It would depend on what your site is composed of, but you can add videos, how-tos, related blog post, etc.
All of which get a user in a direction, attract links, and help get link juice to deeper pages.
-
Thanks Richard, Is there any advantge to have all my pages only go 1 deep?
-
Sure, the most obvious is the use of a keyword, but don't go more than 3 deep. domain.com/category1/category2/product.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
-
Redesign Just Starting - Should I Leave The Previous Incomplete Site or Setup A Temporary Holding Page and Redirect Previous URL'S?
Hi All I've picked up a new website project and wanted to ask about the best way to proceed with the current site during the development process. The current site is incomplete although it has been live for a while and has over 80 pages in the sitemap. Link to site https://tinyurl.com/ychwftup The business owner wants to take down the current site and simply add a landing page stating "new website coming soon". From an SEO perspective, am I better to keep the current site live until the new site is ready? Or would it not make any difference if I setup the landing page and add 301 redirects from each page in the sitemap to the landing page. Many Thanks In Advance For Any Assistance
Web Design | | ruislip180 -
Looking for a new Web Developer and Graphic Designer - Where to look? Job Description in Post
Hi All, I know I can go to Guru.com, etc. but is there a place here that I can look for a web dev that can help with my tasks? I have a good bit of work to offer them and my current web dev who has been a great asset has suffered from health problems and it has affected his output, so I'm sad to say I need to look for someone that can help me get caught back up. If anyone has any suggestions on someone that is a knowledgeable web developer that has access to their own graphic designer (or can do graphic design themselves as well) please let me know. I am not opposed at all to hire a separate graphic designer to send work over to the web developer. SOMEONE WITH SEO EXPERIENCE WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL AS WELL AS MY CURRENT WEB DEVELOPER HAD IT AS WELL. The current projects going on are: Changing the header graphics on the home page to meet compliance. Constantly adding and editing my websites with small tweaks almost daily. Creating PDF's with content we give and uploading them as well as images to the sites. Keeping in mind that editing the site can affect responsiveness and we have to make sure our logo is a certain size compared to other metrics, etc. Creating web banners, tile ads, etc. Creating facebook main photo for biz page. I will be happy to share any info via PM or if anyone can point me in the right direction in finding someone that would be awesome! Thanks!
Web Design | | Veebs1 -
Competitor's new site ranking with out much keywords - How?
Hi all, One of our competitors have recently redesigned their website with new content. Now I can see much less keywords in the content. And page title also changed away from keywords. Still this is ranking at good position. How? Previously they used to have much landing pages with related keywords which some of them are missing now. Still I wonder why this website is ranking high? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
URL Structure's Effect on SEO
Hello all, I have a client who currently has a very poor URL structure. As it stands, their URLs are formatted in the following manner: http://www.domain.com/category/subcategory/page In all my years of SEO, however, I have always tried to implement the following format: http://www.domain.com/category/page The web designer for this particular project has been very reluctant to change the structure for obvious reasons, but I'm convinced that by modifying the URL structure, SEO will improve. I am correct in thinking this? Likewise, if I am able to get the URL structure changed, what do I need to look out for to make sure we don't lose any traction for our keyword terms? Any and all insight/suggestions is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
Web Design | | maxcarnage0 -
Moving to new site. Should I take old blog posts with me?
Our company website has needed a complete overhaul for some time now and the new one is almost ready to go live. We also have a separate "news" site that is houses around 800 blog posts and news items. (That news site will be thrown away because it's on a completely different domain and causes confusion.) So we have a main site with about 100 decent blog posts and a separate news site with 800 poor posts. I plan on bringing all the main site blog posts over to the new site (both WordPress), but my question is whether or not to bring over the news site posts? All, handful, none? Another issue is the news site doesn't have Google Analytics, so I'm not sure if any posts actually generate traffic, but I can from the main site we do get some referrals from it. As far as quality of content goes, it's poor. Not sure who wrote it all, but it's mainly text press releases that aren't very interesting. Is it worth bringing over for SEO purposes or simply delete the site and create a mass redirect so all of those pages will direct to the new website's blog page? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | codyfrew0 -
Which is the Best Web Hosting Company?
Which web hosting company is the best to use for SEO purposes? Also which company has the best cost and value?
Web Design | | bronxpad1 -
Over Optimization & Footer Links for Crediting Web Design to a Company
With the recent updates to the algorithm having to do with link networks and over optimization it has got me to thinking about the footer links we add to each site that we build and do web design for linking back to ours. I could certainly see how Google could make the assumption that these are all on the same server, pointing back to one main site, and penalize us for that. Should we no=follow these links? They may say something like, "Website Designed By: Company Name". They do provide a valuable source to some extent of traffic to the site from people interested in our designs. Any thoughts?
Web Design | | JoshGill270 -
Multiple Sites, multiple locations similar / duplicate content
I am working with a business that wants to rank in local searches around the country for the same service. So they have websites such as OURSITE-chicago.com and OURSITE-seattle.com -- All of these sites are selling the same services, but with small variations in each state due to different legal standards in the state. The current strategy is to put up similar "local" websites with all the same content. So the bottom line is that we have a few different sites with the same content. The business wants to go national and is planning a different website for each location. In my opinion the duplicate content is a real problem. Unfortunately the nature of the service makes it so that there aren't many ways to say the same thing on each site 50 times without duplicate content. Rewriting content for each state seems like a daunting task when you have 70+ pages per site. So, from an SEO standpoint we have considered: Using the canonocalization tag on all but the central site... I think this would hurt all of the websites SERPs because none will have unique content. Having a central site with directories OURSITE.com/chicago -- but this creates a problem because we need to link back to the relevant content in the main site and ALSO have the unique "Chicago" content easily accessable to Chicago users while having Seattle users able to access their Seattle data. The best way we thought to do this was using a frame with a universal menu and a unique state based menu... Also not a good option because of frames will also hurt SEO. Rewrite all the same content 50 times. You can see why none of these are desirable options. But I know that plenty of websites have "state maps" on their main site. Is there a way to accomplish this in a way that doesn't make our copywriter want to kill us?
Web Design | | SysAdmin190