Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best URL-structure for ecommerce store?
-
What structure will recommend to the product pages?
Lets make an example with the keyword "Luxim FZ200"
With category in url:
www.myelectronicshop.com/digital-cameras/luxim-FZ200.htmlWith /product prefix:
www.myelectronicshop.com/product/luxim-FZ200.htmlWithout category in url:
www.myelectronicshop.com/luxim-FZ200.htmlI have read in a blog post that Paddy Moogan recommend /lluxim-FZ200.html - i think i prefer this version too.
But I can see that many of the bigger ecommerce stores are using a /product prefix before the product name. What is the reason for this? and what is best practice?
-
I Have an ecommerce site hosted on volusion and they make the structure /category/product (Specifically www.example.com/shortnameurl/productcode"). I figure with 10000+ sites they have found that this structure is best. They want the best results for their clients so they retain & gain new busines.
I recently tried to duplicate(ish) the product name like /black-luxium-camera/luxiumfz200 ... and google killed me.
My suggestion, stick with /categoryORbrand/product, NOT .com/product/ as there is more opportunity to stand out when people search.
-
I guess if you could host all your products at root level then this would be better....it just may be difficult to manage house keeping wise.
-
Why would you go for example.com/product/luxim-FZ200.html instead of example.com/luxim-FZ200.html ?
-
Duplicate content is not at problem - there will of course always be a default category.
-
To avoid duplicate content I would specify that you don't have the same product page sitting in different categories.
Instead the product page should be the same URL even if it lives in multiple categories.e.g. www.example/product/luxim-FZ200.html
So if you click on the product link in Panasonic you go to the product page. You then go to the same page if you click on the product page from the "digital camera" category. The page is then unique and doesn't live in any category in particular.
You can then set the canonical link at product page level.
-
Hey Jesper,
The decision of URL structure can be affected by multiple stuff, that your Content Management System supports or not.
I prefer the 3rd version (the one without category in the link) to avoid duplicate content coming from different URL patterns to the same page (now I know you could place canonical links, but what happens when you have 50000 products and at least 10000 categories and child categories?).
If you do not have too many categories and subcategories, and you are able to insert canonical links into your system, then I would go for URL structure with category name included (it is more descriptive).
Just an example for your case:
A. Website with a lot of categories and subcategories
www.example.com/panasonic/lumix/lumix-FZ200.html
www.example.com/digital-cameras/panasonic/lumx-FZ200.html
www.example/product/luxim-FZ200.html
and so on...
Could leave to duplicate content if you cannot point out which version of the URL is the "Real" version.
B. Website would have the same product under the same categories, but then the product URL would look like:
www.example/luxim-FZ200.html
I hope that helps you take a decision.
Gr.,
Istvan
-
I believe the reason many ecommerce stores use a /product prefix in the URL is because their ecommerce provider / program does it by default.
I'd typically go with the first (with category, but without product) as you have a sort of breadcrumbing in your URL structure, which can also be applied on page.However, I don't usually have products in more than one category - if you do then Paddy's suggestion is the way to go, because, as he says, if you have the category in the URL in that scenario it can lead to duplicate content issues.
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
-
Google is indexing bad URLS
Hi All, The site I am working on is built on Wordpress. The plugin Revolution Slider was downloaded. While no longer utilized, it still remained on the site for some time. This plugin began creating hundreds of URLs containing nothing but code on the page. I noticed these URLs were being indexed by Google. The URLs follow the structure: www.mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/revslider/templates/this-part-changes/ I have done the following to prevent these URLs from being created & indexed: 1. Added a directive in my Htaccess to 404 all of these URLs 2. Blocked /wp-content/uploads/revslider/ in my robots.txt 3. Manually de-inedex each URL using the GSC tool 4. Deleted the plugin However, new URLs still appear in Google's index, despite being blocked by robots.txt and resolving to a 404. Can anyone suggest any next steps? I Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
What's the best way to handle product filter URLs?
I've been researching and can't find a clear cut answer. Imagine you have a product category page e.g. domain/jeans You've a lot of options as to how to filter the results domain/jeans?=ladies,skinny,pink,10 or domain/jeans/ladies-skinny-pink-10 or domain/jeans/ladies/skinny?=pink,10 And in this how do you handle titles, breadcrumbs etc. Is the a way you prefer to handle filters and why do you do it that way? I'm trying to make my mind up as some very big names handle this differently e.g. http://www.next.co.uk/shop/gender-women-category-jeans/colour-pink-fit-skinny-size-10r VS https://www.matalan.co.uk/womens/shop-by-category/jeans?utf8=✓&[facet_filter][meta.tertiary_category][Skinny]=on&[facet_filter][variants.meta.size][Size+10]=on&[facet_filter][meta.master_colour][Midwash]=on&[facet_filter][min_current_price][gte]=6.0&[facet_filter][min_current_price][lte]=18.0&per=36&sort=
Technical SEO | | RodneyRiley0 -
SEO impact of the anatomy of URL subdirectory structure?
I've been pushing hard to get our Americas site (DA 34) integrated with our higher domain authority (DA 51) international website. Currently our international website is setup in the following format... website.com/us-en/ website.com/fr-fr/ etc... The problem that I am facing is that I need my development framework installed in it's own directory. It cannot be at the root of the website (website.com) since that is where the other websites (us-en, fr-fr, etc.) are being generated from. Though we will have control of /us-en/ after the integration I cannot use that as the website main directory since the americas website is going to be designed for scalability (eventually adopting all regions and languages) so it cannot be region specific. What we're looking at is website.com/[base]/us-en. I'm afraid that if base has any length to it in terms of characters it is going to dilute the SEO value of whatever comes after it in the URL (website.com/[base]/us-en/store/product-name.html). Any recommendations?
Technical SEO | | bearpaw0 -
Best URL format for pagination
We're currently changing the URL format of our website search, we have been discussing a lot and cannot decide the past way to pass the pagination parameter for SEO. We narrowed down to the options. www.website.com/apples/p2 - www.website.com/apples?page=2 - www.website.com/apples/page/2 What would give us best ranking returns? What do you think?
Technical SEO | | HelpSaude0 -
Landing Page URL Structure
We are finally setting up landing pages to support our PPC campaigns. There has been some debate internally about the URL structure. Originally we were planning on URL's like: domain.com /california /florida /ny I would prefer to have the URL's for each state inside a "state" folder like: domain.com /state /california /florida /ny I like having the folders and pages for each state under a parent folder to keep the root folder as clean as possible. Having a folder or file for each state in the root will be very messy. Before you scream URL rewriting :-). Our current site is still running under Classic ASP which doesn't support URL rewriting. We have tried to use HeliconTech's ISAPI rewrite module for IIS but had to remove it because of too many configuration issues. Next year when our coding to MVC is complete we will use URL rewriting. So the question for now: Is there any advantage or disadvantage to one URL structure over the other?
Technical SEO | | briankb0 -
Old URL redirect to New URL
Alright I did something dumb a year a go and I'm still paying for it. I changed my hyphenated URL to the non-hyphenated version when I redesigned my website. I say it was dumb because I lost most of my link juice even though I did 301 redirects (via the htaccess file) for almost all of the pages I could find in Google's index. Here's my problem. My new site took a huge hit in traffic (down 60%) when I made the change and even though I've done thousands of redirects my old site is still showing up in the SERPS and send much if not most of my traffic. I don't want to take the old site down in fear it will kill all of my traffic. What should I do? Is there a better method I should explore then 301 redirects? Could the other site be affecting my current rank since it's still there? (FYI...both sites are built on the WP platform). Any help or ideas are greatly appreciated. Thank you! Joe
Technical SEO | | kaje0 -
Drupal URL Aliases vs 301 Redirects + Do URL Aliases create duplicates?
Hi all! I have just begun work on a Drupal site which heavily uses the URL Aliases feature. I fear that it is creating duplicate links. For example:: we have http://www.URL.com/index.php and http://www.URL.com/ In addition we are about to switch a lot of links and want to keep the search engine benefit. Am I right in thinking URL aliases change the URL, while leaving the old URL live and without creating search engine friendly redirects such as 301s? Thanks for any help! Christian
Technical SEO | | ChristianMKTG0 -
Best 404 Error Checker?
I have a client with a lot of 404 errors from Web Master Tools, and i have to go through and check each of the links because Some redirect to the correct page Some redirect to another url but its a 404 error Some are just 404 errors Does anyone know of a tool where i can dump all of the urls and it will tell me If the url is redirected, and to where if the page is a 404 or other error Any tips or suggestions will be really appreciated! Thanks SEO Moz'rs
Technical SEO | | anchorwave0