What's the best URL Structure if my company is in multiple locations or cities?
-
I have read numerous intelligent, well informed responses to this question but have yet to hear a definitive answer from an authority.
Here's the situation.
- Let's say I have a company who's URL is www.awesomecompany.com who provides one service called 'Awesome Service'
- This company has 20 franchises in the 20 largest US cities.
- They want a uniform online presence, meaning they want their design to remain consistent across all 20 domains.
My question is this; what's the best domain or url structure for these 20 sites?
- Subdomain - dallas.awesomecompany.co
- Unique URL - www.dallasawesomecompany.com
- Directory - www.awesomecompany.com/dallas/
Here's my thoughts on this question but I'm really hoping someone b*tch slaps me and tells me I'm wrong:
Of these three potential solutions these are how I would rank them and why:
-
Subdomains
-
Pros:
- Allows me to build an entire site so if my local site grows to 50+ pages, it's still easy to navigate
- Allows me to brand root domain and leverage brand trust of root domain (let's say the franchise is starbucks.com for instance)
-
Cons:
- This subdomain is basically a brand new url in google's eyes and any link building will not benefit root domain.
-
-
Directory
- Pros
- Fully leverages the root domain branding and fully allows for further branding
- If the domain is an authority site, ranking for sub pages will be achieved much quicker
- Cons
- While this is a great solution if you just want a simple map listing and contact info page for each of your 20 locations, what if each location want's their own "about us" page and their own "Awesome Service" page optimized for their respective City (i.e. Awesome Service in Dallas)? The Navigation and potentially the URL is going to start to get really confusing and cumbersome for the end user. Think about it, which is preferable?:
- dallas.awesomcompany.com/awesome-service/
- www.awesomecompany.com/dallas/awesome-service (especially when www.awesomecompany.com/awesome-service/ already exists
- While this is a great solution if you just want a simple map listing and contact info page for each of your 20 locations, what if each location want's their own "about us" page and their own "Awesome Service" page optimized for their respective City (i.e. Awesome Service in Dallas)? The Navigation and potentially the URL is going to start to get really confusing and cumbersome for the end user. Think about it, which is preferable?:
- Pros
-
Unique URL
- Pros
- Potentially quicker rankings achieved than a subdomain if it's an exact match domain name (i.e. dallasawesomeservice.com)
- Cons
- Does not leverage the www.awesomecompany.com brand
- Could look like an imposter
- It is literally a brand new domain in Google's eyes so all SEO efforts would start from scratch
- Pros
Obviously what goes without saying is that all of these domains would need to have unique content on them to avoid duplicate content penalties. I'm very curious to hear what you all have to say.
-
1. I prefer you, to use subdomains.
1.1 Than every subdomains, connect with an local hosting provider.
for example, for a New York, use a nyc hosting provider, with an ip located on new york
1.2 Earn local backlinks, from local directories,events, businesses, another sources etc.
Stay away from "Duplicate Content or ON-PAGE Factors".
I think, this is the best solution. And try to use only 2-3 characters of each franchis eand not completely name. Because you can place the name of franchise on the title, example: Brandname Dallas.
Hope it works.
-
I think the reason you won't here a definitive answer is because there isn't one and each does have their own pros & cons.
Personally, I always go for country-specific domains where possible or folders where not. Not a fan of sub-domains myself, but I will use them in cases where the other options just won't fit with the job requirements.
However, I think you need to look at your requirements, as you have done, and see which one is going to fit your requirements the closest. Rarely is there a solution that fits all.
Andy
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
-
What's best practice for cart pages?
i don't mean e-commerce site in general, but the actual cart page itself. What's best practice for the links that customers click to add products to the cart, and the cart page itself? Also, I use vanity URLs for my cart links which redirect to the actual cart page with the parameters applied. Should I use use 301 or 302 redirects for the links? Do I make the cart page's canonical tag point back to the store home page so that I'm not accruing link juice to a page that customers don't actually want to land on from search? I'm kinda surprised at the dearth of information out there on this, or maybe I'm not looking in the right places?
Technical SEO | | VM-Oz0 -
How to keep NAP if my company has two locations?
Hello, I am a bit puzzled since the company I'm working with has recently opened a new location. The company's first location is listed in all local directories. Could you please advise me what to do to make 2 locations visible and not to mess up with keeping same NAP all over the web? Most directories do not simply have the option to add another location. I had to open a brand new Google Business page for the second location (while using the same name brand). I suppose I am getting into trouble with this?
Technical SEO | | kirupa0 -
Dynamic Url best approach
Hi We are currently in the process of making changes to our travel site where by if someone does a search this information can be stored and also if the user needs to can take the URL and paste into their browser at find that search again. The url will be dynamic for every search, so in order to stop duplicate content I wanted ask what would be the best approach to create the URLS. ** An example of the URL is: ** package-search/holidays/hotelFilters/?depart=LGW&arrival=BJV&sdate=20150812&edate=20150819&adult=2&child=0&infant=0&fsearch=first&directf=false&nights=7&tsdate=&rooms=1&r1a=2&r1c=0&r1i=0&&dest=3&desid=1&rating=&htype=all&btype=all&filter=no&page=1 I wanted to know if people have previous experience in something like this and what would be the best option for SEO. Will we need to create the URL with a # ( As i read this stops google crawling after the #) Block the folder IN ROBOTS is there any other areas I should be aware of in order stop any duplicate content and 404 pages once the URL/HOLIDAY SEARCH is no longer valid. thanks E
Technical SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
Test site got indexed in Google - What's the best way of getting the pages removed from the SERP's?
Hi Mozzers, I'd like your feedback on the following: the test/development domain where our sitebuilder works on got indexed, despite all warnings and advice. The content on these pages is in active use by our new site. Thus to prevent duplicate content penalties we have put a noindex in our robots.txt. However off course the pages are currently visible in the SERP's. What's the best way of dealing with this? I did not find related questions although I think this is a mistake that is often made. Perhaps the answer will also be relevant for others beside me. Thank you in advance, greetings, Folko
Technical SEO | | Yarden_Uitvaartorganisatie0 -
The importance of url's - are they that important?
Hi Guys I'm reading some very contrasting and confusing reviews regarding urls and the impact they have on a sites ability to rank. My client has a number of flooring products, 71 to be exact - categorised under three sub categories 1. Gallery Wood - 2. Prefinshed Wood - 3. Parquet & Reclaimed. All of the 71 products are branded products (names that are completely unrelated to specific keyword search terms. This is having a major impact regarding how we optimise the site. FOR EXAMPLE: A product of the floor called "White Grain" - the "Key Word" we would like to rank this page for is Brown Engineered Flooring. I'm interested to know, should the name of the branded product match the url? What would you change to help this page rank better for the keyword - Brown Engineered Flooring. Title page: White Grain Url: thecompanyname.com/gallery-wood/white-grain (white grain is the name of the product) Key Word: Brown Engineered Flooring **Seo Title: **White Grain, Brown Engineered Flooring by X Meta Description: BLAH BLAH Brown Engineered Flooring BLAH BLAH Any feedback to help get my head around this would be really appreciated. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | GaryVictory0 -
Should I use my competitor's name in my content to help my rankings?
If I have a competitor that ranks higher than me, would it be helpful to use their name in my content, or in my meta information?
Technical SEO | | greaterstudio0 -
Best way to deal with these urls?
Found overly dynamic urls in the crawl report. http://www.trespass.co.uk/camping/festivals-friendly/clothing?Product_sort=PriceDesc&utm_campaign=banner&utm_medium=blog&utm_source=Roslyn Best way to deal with these? Cheers Guys
Technical SEO | | Trespass0 -
Will syndicated content hurt a website's ranking potential?
I work with a number of independent insurance agencies across the United States. All of these agencies have setup their websites through one preferred insurance provider. The websites are customizable to a point, but the content for the entire website is mostly the same. Therefore, literally hundreds of agency sites have essentially the same content. The only thing that changes is a few "wildcards" in the copy where the agency fills in their city, state, services areas, company history, etc. My questions is: will this syndicated content hurt their ranking potential? I've been toying with the idea of further editing the content to make it more unique to an agency, but I would hate to waste a lot of hours doing this if it won't help anything. Would you expect this approach to be beneficial or a waste of time? Thank you for your help!
Technical SEO | | copyjack0