Page URL Hiearchy
-
So I have read on here that page URL Hiearchy is important. My question is from a search engine standpoint which of the following methods would be the best to use (or another if not listed)
COMPACT and naturally hierarchical
MountainBiking.com/adventures ( a list of the pages below )
MountainBiking.com/adventures/in whistler (for each page)
MountainBiking.com/adventures/in utah
OR VERBOSE but reptetive
MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking adventures ( intro + a list of the pages below )
MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking Adventures/Mounting Biking adventures in whistler
MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking Adventures/Mountain Biking Adventures in Utah
It seemed like the blog I read suggested the compact form, but it seems to me that the verbose (though admittedly a bit clunky) seems better so far as exact keyword match etc.
Experience and or advice on this?
-
My opinion: mountainbiking.com/adventures/mountain-biking-adventures-in-utah/ Why like this? Because when you put less than 3 or more than 5 words in the URL google gives less importance for the keywords in the URL based in what mattcutts said. And for user point of view, If I see a sub-folder with MOUNTAIN BIKING too( assume the domain already have the keywords ) will look spammy for me.
-
The only problem with that would be that all of the links would have to be on the home page, which I don't want.
I have a landing page, then a couple of searchable content categories/catalogs, similar to a blog structure ( excerpts to the full page )
Personally I like the flat structure better, but worry about losing out on points for not having an exact enough URL
-
I was going to add - between the words, is there a reason that more compact form (no - ) is better?
So the part that looks like it's phishing is the repetition of mountain bike adventures in the catalog section?
My thought was, and perhaps incorrectly that if someone searched for "Mountain Bike Adventures" then they would get the catalog page, but if something more specific the expanded page.
So to clarify you think that MountainBiking.com/adventures if all else on the page was optimized would work better than MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking adventures/
Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.
-
I've read that a flat URL structure is best -
"MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking Adventures In Whistler" instead of "MountainBiking.com/Mountain Biking Adventures/Mountain Biking Adventures In Whistler".
This format is easier for bots to crawl. Since only around 130 characters of the URL show in SERPs anyway, searchers won't see the whole URL if it's too long. You also avoid the appearance of "keyword stuffing" by using a flat URL structure.
-
The second format looks blatantly like SEO-'phishing' and I would not go to a website like that. Having the spaces in there could also cause some serious issues. You can always have the final destination being verbose:
MountainBiking.com/adventures/mountainbikingadventuresinwhistler
Although this looks crappy again. I think just having all these in your domain will be enough, so go with the clean, compact format, for your visitor's sake.
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
-
Should I utilize URL re-writes to include keywords and other optimised page elements on my website?
Hi there, I am working on a medical recruitment website: https://wave.com.au/ I have noticed that our Job Search and Job Listings section of the website is lacking a little bit in terms of SEO optimisation. For example, at the moment this is our search page (with locum work type selected): https://wave.com.au/search-locum/results If you add a location, for example, NSW and then click search again, it updates the URL to: https://wave.com.au/search-locum/results?LocumSearchForm_Location[]=NSW&action_doSearch=Search+jobs I did a check what some competitors and leaders in the recruitment industry were doing and I came across: https://www.ochrerecruitment.com.au/jobs/anaesthetics/new-south-wales/locum/ If you click the different filters/options, it updates the URL to include more clearly defined categories. Some websites would even have a H1 heading tag that would update based on the filters/options you selected. Should I set up a set of URL re-writes and re-structure my website a little bit so that dynamic URLs change to static etc.? Does anyone have any best practice knowledge in regards to this? I have been referencing the following article: https://moz.com/blog/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls-the-best-practice-for-seo-is-still-clear
On-Page Optimization | | Wavelength_International0 -
301 and the base URL
Hi, please bear with me as I'm pretty new to all this! I've my base URL but obviously want to add keywords to it for seo purposes. Should I redirect from the base URL to the URL with the keywords appended? So my landing page goes from say www.moz.com to www.moz.com/keywords-here. If I do that, should I replicate all the meta data (descriptions etc) on the original landing page? Or does it not matter? Thanks, Nick
On-Page Optimization | | nickwoodward0 -
On page links
Hi I am really intrigued by Bloomberg strategy. if you look at their article pages they are full with internal links done with what I assume to be an automated process (too many pages to be done manually). it seems to work for them. I would love to hear your opinions.
On-Page Optimization | | ciznerguy
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-26/uber-said-close-to-raising-funding-at-up-to-40b-value.html0 -
Can you 301 redirect to a page that has other pages 301 to it?
Two years ago updated url page to include better keywords and used a 301 redirect from the old page to the new. so www.example.com/keyword-1st-generation.html now points to ... www.example.com/keyword-2nd-generation.html That moved the pages up in ranking, but now have better kw for the url, so is it okay to redirect the /keyword-2nd-geration-html to www.example.com/keyword-3rd-generation.html And what is a good length of time before removing the 1st-generation url? It's been 3 years and there is no chance of using it again. Plus, no sign of it in analytics.
On-Page Optimization | | AllIsWell0 -
URL Rewrite
(By Google Traductor) Hello, I wanted to ask about some changes that we are evaluating for the issue of passing the url with variables to be more descriptive, for example: http://www.agroads.com.ar/detalle.asp?clasi=139592 tohttp://www.agroads.com.ar/humedimetro-para-cereales-draminski-gmm-139592.html In this case corresponds to the breakdown of a product if you have long published andcan be well positioned to change the title of this position would be lost unless youmanage it with a 301, as one would manage when you have more than 30000 products and title may change several times? There are tools to manage this? Finally, we must apply this to all listed with their respective filters, recommends doingtheir part with 301 redirects and analyze what funciene well to continue with the rest or implement a complete change? I hope I can bring a little light to implement this. Greetings and thanks! Roberto
On-Page Optimization | | romaro0 -
Long URLs
Many URLs of my site are long due to long navigation paths. Here is an example: http://tinyurl.com/6qc4syb. My question is, if I shorten the urls (which I probably should do), does it matter that they no longer follow the navigation path?
On-Page Optimization | | rdreich490 -
3 Different Home Page URL's Being Indexed?
Hello Everyone! I own a dog supplies eCom site on the x-cart platform. I recently upgraded to 4.4 version about 3 weeks ago and am noticing 3 different home page URL's getting indexed and ranked: /
On-Page Optimization | | k9byron
/home.php
/home.php?cat= I dont know why this is happening and I dont claim to be an expert SEO but know this cant be good! I am seeing high rankings on certain terms for all 3 URL's. Has anyone seen this before and can anyone give me any feedback on this and how it may be effecting my sites ranking in the future? Thanks in advance!
Byron-0 -
Woah, my A-grade optimized pages that were on the first page have all vanished outside the top 50 in Google... is this Panda?
Yep as mentioned, I had some pages hit the top ten pretty quickly after ensuring they were A-grade for pretty uncompetitive keywords however, today, all bar 2 have just vanished from the top 50! All were ranking in Google.co.uk and I know we were predicting the Panda update to hit soon but WOW! My client is understandably a little upset, what on earch do I tell him and what should I do about it? Cheers! jT
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0