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I am having difficulty evaluating pros and cons of various URL structures with respect to SEO benefits. So I can have the following 1. /for-sale-in-<city>-<someothertext>-<uniqueid>.php
So in this case a term like 'for sale in San Francisco' is directly part of the URL. </uniqueid></someothertext></city> 2. /for-sale/<city>/<someothertext>uniqueId
Here 'for sale in San Francisco' is not so direct in the URL, so I think. Also I 'heard' that forward slash URLs are somehow considered as being 'lower down' in the directory structure.  </someothertext></city> 3. /for-sale/<city>/<someothertext>/?pid=uniqueId</someothertext></city> someOtherText contains keywords we are targeting. 1. Is there a preference of one format over the other? 2. Does it even matter? 3. someOtherText - does it makes sense to put keywords in the URL for just SEO purposes? I do not per se need someOtherText for functionality.

I am not able to convincingly decide between using redirects versus using 404 errors. People are giving varied opinions. Here are my cases 1. Coding errors - we put out a bad link a. Some people are saying redirect to home page; the user at least has something to do PLUS more importantly it does NOT hurt your SEO ranking. b. Counter - the page ain't there. Return 404 2. Product removed - link1 to product 1 was out there. We removed product1; so link1 is also gone. It is either lying in people's bookmarks, OR because of coding errors we left it hanging out at some places on our site.