New URL : Which is best

[Boodreaux]

Which is best:

www.domainname.com/category-subcategory

or

www.domainname.com/subcategory-category

or

www.domainname.com/category/subcategory

or

www.domain.com/subcategory/category

I am going to have 12 different subcategories under the category

[Cyrus-Shepard]

I'm biased towards a flattened architecture with fewer directories. I think it can help with click-through and makes more sense from an organizational point of view.

To be fair, with the exception of #4, I've seen real-world examples of all of these that rank and perform very well.

If this were a vote, I'd vote for #2. Consider how Yelp organizes their URLs using the following example listing for a dentist in Seattle.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/randall-broom-dds-seattle

The above example is actually a hybrid, because the /biz directory is actually a category, but so is "seattle" which is appended to the end of the URL.

Whatever you choose, make sure it's consistent and follow a logical navigation and linking structure, so that both search engines and users understand where they are at all times.

[Boodreaux]

I don't think I have had any problems with my pages getting crawled.  I only have about 500.

I was thinking more along the lines of Click-ability and if it had any bearing on the google rankings.

[Francisco_Meza]

www.domainname.com/category/subcategory

ALL THE WAY! You want to be crawled from the top down.

[VictorVC]

I've always had better luck and an easier time ranking with less trailing slashes.

[BenFox]

Really?

I'd have gone for www.domainname.com/category/subcategory

Have you done any testing on this? Would be really interested in hearing your results.

[VictorVC]

www.domainname.com/category-subcategory