Basic URL Structure Question
-
Hi,
Putting together a URL for a product we are selling. We sell IT Training courses and the structure is normally
Top Folder=Main Courses section
Sub Folder=Vendor
Page Specific=Course Name + Term
An example is
courses/microsoft/mcse-training
However I have a product where the vendor and course name are the same. How should I best organise the URL - double mention or single mention
So a)
courses/togaf/togaf-foundation-training
or b)
courses/togaf/foundation-training
-
Pranav, I suspect you are misinterpreting what has been said and you are also getting your words confused.
Characters are different to words. For example the url http://www.this-is-an-example.com has four words (this is an example) and 33 characters. What you have been saying is that character number 1 has more weight than character 33. This is inaccurate.
What I believe you are trying to say, is what Matt Cutts mentions in the interview you posted, that multiple keywords in a URL are given less weight after about the fourth or fifth keyword. I suggest that you read the articles you quote more carefully before offering erroneous advice.
-
Crimson,
John Doherty is one of the foremost authorities in SEO.
And please find below my comment where Google's Matt Cutts says that after 5 words Google gives less weight to the other words.
-
**1. If you see Google's blog you'll realize that keyword value decreases with each character in the URL. **
http://www.johnfdoherty.com/lessons-from-google-about-url-lengths/
Pranav, I fail to see where you are getting this information from. Firstly, the link you posted is not from Google's blog, it is a blog post from an SEO. Secondly, he does not provide hard evidence to support your claim that keyword value decreases with each character.
-
Also you can check out this resource -
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-best-practices-for-url-structure/7216/
According to Google’s Matt Cutts if there are more than 5 words…
Algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.”
-
Does the order of the words in the URL matter?
-
Irving,
1. If you see Google's blog you'll realize that keyword value decreases with each character in the URL.
http://www.johnfdoherty.com/lessons-from-google-about-url-lengths/
But your point is also correct that the file name has more value than the folder name.
3. Agree that it's important to put all required keywords into the URL. And sites like Quora have really long URL's.
But one should try to keep the URL length to a minimum I feel as shorter URL's tend to have higher click through rates.
-
Crimson, The URL is not the only factor in the ranking.
Many other factors including -
1. Off pages SEO
2. Content
3. Domain authority
Etc.
The points in my answer above display how to optimize your URL.
But you can't just optimize your URL and reach the top of the rankings.
-
i personally wouldnt entertain subfolder/aftersubfolder/aftersubfolder but look at how you may be able to do something like /subfolder-productx-examplez. Dont bury the pages too far in your url structure.
-
I'm going to thumbs up Irving's response on this. I will add that my preference would be to use this URL structure if you only have one type of training per vendor:
/courses/togaf-foundation-training
/courses/microsoft-msce-training
And if you have multiple training courses per vendor, I would use the following:
/courses/togaf/foundation-training
/courses/microsoft/msce-training
Hope this helps!
-
This information is misleading and inaccurate.
A search for [car insurance] in google UK returns a moneysupermarket page at number 1 that contains 39 characters in the URL. Looking further down the results there is a post office result with over 50 characters in the URL.
Also, your theory about the 'value of the keyword reducing with each character' is total nonsense.
-
Personally, I would go with the second option:
courses/togaf/foundation-training
Mainly because it looks a lot neater and you don't really need to mention 'togaf' twice in the URL.
Really you should try to keep your URLs as neat and user friendly as possible whilst keeping the relevant keywords. I generally try to keep them as short as possible without sacrificing essential keywords and pay no attention to the advice about keeping the length of your URL to 35 characters because google only displays 35, this is incorrect.
Hope that helps,
Adam.
-
1. The value of the Keyword reduces with each character. The first character has highest value and the last the lowest. where did you hear that? the file name is more important than the folder name for SEO
2. Google only counts the first mention of a Keyword and the 2nd mention of Toga doesn't add any value. Agree, more than one instance is stuffing. This is exponentially true when you create URLs that have a keyword mentioned twice in the URL, and then if the page is linking several times to these sections you create too high of a keyword density. Google prefers less and doesn't want keywords shoved down their throat.
3. Plus Google only displays 35 characters of the URL so one should aim to keep the total length of the URL below 35 chars. I respectfully disagree, just because Google only shows 35 characters in the display doesn't mean they disregard the keywords in the remainder of the URL - they are just doing that to keep the display looking clean - 35 characters is nothing. Most blogs go WAY over that with autogenerated filenames, it's all a matter of making sure you don't keyword stuff.
-
B. courses/togaf/foundation-training
1. The value of the Keyword reduces with each character. The first character has highest value and the last the lowest.
2. Google only counts the first mention of a Keyword and the 2nd mention of Toga doesn't add any value.
3. Plus Google only displays 35 characters of the URL so one should aim to keep the total length of the URL below 35 chars.
Hope this helps.
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
-
URL Question: Is there any value for ecomm sites in having a reverse "breadcrumb" in the URL?
Wondering if there is any value for e-comm sites to feature a reverse breadcrumb like structure in the URL? For example: Example: https://www.grainger.com/category/anchor-bolts/anchors/fasteners/ecatalog/N-8j5?ssf=3&ssf=3 where we have a reverse categorization happening? with /level2-sub-cat/level1-sub-cat/category in the reverse order as to the actual location on the site. Category: Fasteners
Technical SEO | | ROI_DNA
Sub-Cat (level 1): Anchors
Sub-Cat (level 2): Anchor Bolts0 -
URL / sitemap structure for support pages
I am creating a site that has four categories housed in folders off of the TLD. Example: example.com/category-1
Technical SEO | | InterCall
example.com/category-2
example.com/category-3
example.com/category-4 Those category folders contain sub-folders that house the products inside each category. Example: example.com/category-1/product-1
example.com/category-2/product-1
etc. Each of the products have a corresponding support page with technical information, FAQs, etc. I have three options as to how to structure the support pages' URLs. Option 1 - Add new sub-folder with "support" added to string: example.com/category-1/product-1-support Option 2 - Add a second sub-folder off of the product sub-folder for support: example.com/category-1/product-1/support Option 3 - Create a "support" folder with product sub-folders: example.com/support/product-1 Which of these three options would you choose? I don't like having one large /support folder that houses all products. It seems like this would create a strange crawling and UX situation. The sitemap would have a huge /support folder with all of my products in it and the keywords in my category folders would be replaced with the word "support." Because I would rather have the main product pages ranking over any of the support pages (outside of searches containing the word "support"), I am leaning toward Option 2: example.com/category-1/product-1/support. I think this structure indicates to crawlers that the more important page is the product page, while the support page is secondary to that. It also makes it clear to users that this is the support page for that particular product. Does anyone have any experience or perspective on this? I'm open to suggestions and if I'm overthinking it, tell me that too. Thanks, team.0 -
URL Format
Often we have web platforms that have a default URL structure that looks something like this www.widgetcompany.co.uk/widget-gallery/coloured-widgets/red-widgets This format is quite well structured but would it just be more effective to be www.widgetcompany.co.uk/red-widgets? I realise that it may depend on a lot of factors but generally is it better to have the shorter URL if targeting the key phrase "red widgets" One thing, it certainly looks a bit keyword stuffy with all those "widgets"
Technical SEO | | vital_hike0 -
Removed URLs
Hi all, We have recently removed 200+ articles from our blog. However, those links are still being shown on Google weeks after their removal. In there a way to speed up the process? What effect will this have on our SEO ranking?
Technical SEO | | businessowner0 -
Multilingual Blog Structure
Hi I have a domain in 20 languages. I want to integrate a wordpress blog (in subfolders) in the 3 most important languages like EN-ES-FR (actually they will be 3 independent blogs) and I want to know which structure is the best one. OPTION 1 domain/en/blog/post1 domain/es/blog/post1 domain/fr/blog/post1 OPTION 2 domain/blog_en/post1 domain/blog_es/post1 domain/blog_fr/post1 Last question. For the rest of the 17 languages of my domain, can I put a link the english blog or is not recommended because maybe too many pages will be linking to the blog? Thank you
Technical SEO | | andromedical0 -
Long URL
I am using seomoz software as a trial, it has crawled my site and a report is telling me that the URL for my forum is to long: <dl> <dt>Title</dt> <dd>Healthy Living Community</dd> <dt>Meta Description</dt> <dd>Healthy life discussion forum chatting about all aspects of healthy living including nutrition, fitness, motivation and much more.</dd> <dt>Meta Robots</dt> <dd>noodp, noydir</dd> <dt>Meta Refresh</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dd> 1 Warning Long URL (> 115 characters) Found about 17 hours ago <dl> <dt>Number of characters</dt> <dd>135 (over by 21)</dd> <dt>Description</dt> <dd>A good URL is descriptive and concise. Although not a high priority, we recommend a URL that is shorter than 75 characters.</dd> </dl> </dd> <dd> URL: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/reprogramming-health/welcome-to-the-forum-for-discussing-the-4-steps-for-reprogramming-ones-health/ The problem is when I check the page via edit or in the admin section of wordpress, the url is a s follows: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/ My question is where is I cannot see where this long url is located, it appears to be a valid page but I cant find it. Thanks Pete </dd> </dl>
Technical SEO | | petemarko0 -
How do I fix these duplicate URLs?
HI guys, I ran a report on my site and it shows some duplicate titles (example below). Do I need to add something to the htaccess file or another file to fix this? I understand that the search engines should only see 1 URL for the page. 2 pages have "Bikes for sale | used bikes | second hand bicycles" title pauslwebsite.com/bikes/ paulswebsite.com/bikes/index.asp Thanks
Technical SEO | | paulmund0 -
Very Quick Joomla Question
Hi, A client's site was previously built in Joomla and he wants us to reproduce content that was in there, but the Joomla site is no longer live and has come to me as an archive containing all the files and folders that were included. So, I am looking at the files and folders without Joomla installed. Can someone tell me quickly how to find the where the actual page content was stored? I started looking, but there are some folders I cannot open and nothing that looks as I expected. Would appreciate a hint or two from someone who knows Joomla well.. Life is too short! Thanks Sha
Technical SEO | | ShaMenz0