What happens to content under a category page that is not indexed?
-
We are reevaluating our URL structure. We have a flat architecture but would like to add subfolders per recommendations here and elsewhere. Some of our category pages are ad heavy/content light so we have them no indexed. We do have lots of quality content on the site that we would like to put under some of these keyword categories. Should we leave it flat? If Google does not see that category page then there will be no link from the homepage to the content page?
Now: homepage/content-page
Proposed: homepage/category/content-page (category is not indexed)
-
Thanks for the reply.
A couple of comments:
- Do you have an opinion about using the structure I listed above if we are no indexing some categories?
- If we are using the keywords in the title, why are you recommending we leave out the category? Will it be overoptimized as that is another concern.
- We have talked about breadcrumbs for our deeper sites. I thought you needed to have categories to implement these. Is this not true?
-
To make navigations easier you could use breadcrumbs. So when the result show up in SERPS you can get
Home > Category > Post
and the breadcrumbs should also be prominently displayed on the site. I believe it heps spiders and users alike in figuring out the contents structure on your site.
In regards to the proposed structure .. is the category a keyword you would like to target on those pages ? For example if you have Home/Melbourne/CafeHome/Melbourne/MoviesIt would make sense to include Melbourne in there if you are targeting that location .But for something likeHome/News/Keyword-Post-Title Home/News/Keyword-Post-Title2Where your keywords are formed in the post title rather than the category , I would leave it out.One other thing to consider is when changing the structure , you should follow the best practices and make sure you redirect the old ones to the new ones . This is a good starting place : http://www.seomoz.org/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seoAt the end of the day , it depends on what content you offer and you alone can make the decision .. if having the category in the url will help you rank better
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
-
Very wierd pages. 2900 403 errors in page crawl for a site that only has 140 pages.
Hi there, I just made a crawl of the website of one of my clients with the crawl tool from moz. I have 2900 403 errors and there is only 140 pages on the website. I will give an exemple of what the crawl error gives me. | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | http://www.mysite.com/en/www.mysite.com/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/en/index.html#?lang=en | | | | | | | | | | There are 2900 pages like this. I have tried visiting the pages and they work, but they are only html pages without CSS. Can you guys help me to see what the problems is. We have experienced huge drops in traffic since Septembre.
Technical SEO | | H.M.N.0 -
Why google removed my landing pages from index?
I made new website meko.lv. I put many work to it, to make page SEO friendly, sprites, reduced requests added SSL, got google page speed insights score 100/100, but in 2. october all pages in google webmasters disappeared from index. Could you please look at website and say whats wrong with it? They are all search results present in google but for how long. it is so annoying, you put so many work but in result get high spam score. It is obvious that new pages can not get good links in one month https://meko.lv/ google webmasters google page speed score: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeko.lv%2F&tab=mobile q1LDHTn
Technical SEO | | Mekounko0 -
When is Duplicate Content Duplicate Content
Hi, I was wondering exactly when duplicate content is duplicate content? Is it always when it is word-for-word or if it is similar? For example, we currently have an information page and I would like to add a FAQ to the website. There is, however, a crossover with the content and some of it is repeated. However, it is not written word for word. Could you please advise me? Thanks a lot Tom
Technical SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Why google indexed pages are decreasing?
Hi, my website had around 400 pages indexed but from February, i noticed a huge decrease in indexed numbers and it is continually decreasing. can anyone help me to find out the reason. where i can get solution for that? will it effect my web page ranking ?
Technical SEO | | SierraPCB0 -
Sitemap indexed pages dropping
About a month ago I noticed my pages indexed from my sitemap are dropping.There are 134 pages in my sitemap and only 11 are indexed. It used to be 117 pages and just died off quickly. I still seem to be getting consistant search traffic but I'm just not sure whats causing this. There are no warnings or manual actions required in GWT that I can find.
Technical SEO | | zenstorageunits0 -
Need for a modified meta-description every page for paginated content?
I'm currently working on a site, where there url structure which is something like: www.domain.com/catagory?page=4. With ~15 results per page. The pages all canonical to www.domain.com/catagory, with rel next and rel prev to www.domain.com/catagory?page=5 and www.domain.com/catagory?page=3 Webmaster tools flags these all as duplicate meta descriptions, So I wondered if there is value in appending the page number to the end of the description, (as we have with the title for the same reason) or if I am using a sub-optimal url structure. Any advice?
Technical SEO | | My-Favourite-Holiday-Cottages0 -
Home page indexed but not ranking...interior pages with thin content outrank home page??
I have a Joomla site with a home page that I can't get to rank for anything beyond the company name @ Google - the site works fine @ Bing and Yahoo. The interior pages will rank all day long but the home page never shows up in the results. I have checked the page code out in every tool that I know about and have had no luck....by all account it should be good to go...any thoughts/comments/help would be greatly appreciated. The site is http://www.selectivedesigns.com Thanks! Greg
Technical SEO | | DougHosmer0 -
Duplicate page content
hi I am getting an duplicate content error in SEOMoz on one of my websites it shows http://www.exampledomain.co.uk http://www.exampledomain.co.uk/ http://www.exampledomain.co.uk/index.html how can i fix this? thanks darren
Technical SEO | | Bristolweb0