URL Structure for "Find A Professional" Page
-
I've read all the URL structure posts out there, but I'm really undecided and would love a second opinion.
Currently, this is how the developer has our professionals directory working:
1. You search by inputting your Zip Code and selecting a category (such as Pool Companies) and we return all professionals within a X-mile radius of that ZIP.
This is how the URL's are structured...
1. Main Page:
/our-professionals
2. The URL looks like this after a search for "Deck Builders" in ZIP 19033:
/our-professionals?zipcode=19033&HidSuppliers=&HiddenSpaces=&HidServices=&HidServices_all=[16]%2C&HidMetroareas=&srchbox=
3. When I click one of the businesses, URL looks like this:
viewprofile.php?id=409
I know how to go about doing this, but I'm undecided on the best structure for the URL's.
Maybe for results pages do this:
find-professionals/deck-builders/philadelphia-pa-19033
And for individual pro's profiles do this:
/deck-builders/philadelphia-pa-19033/Billys-Deck-Service
Any input on how to best structure this so that we can have a good chance of showing in SERPs for "Deck Builders near New Jersey" and the such, would be much appreciated.
-
Takeshi,
I appreciate your response! Having someone validate my thinking definitely helps cure my indecisiveness. I'll implement this structure and see how it performs.
Thanks again and take care,
-Zach
-
My opinion:
Don't stress too much about the exact structure, as long as you have the keywords in there. Also, since adding more words to the URL dilutes the value of each keyword (and makes it harder to type) you want to strike a balance between usability and stuffing all your keywords in.
I think the examples you gave look fine. Just take out the "find-professionals" from the first URL since it's superflous and makes the URL unnecessarily long. Just do "domain.com/profession/state-abbv-zip", with the individual businesses falling under that.
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
-
Is My Site Structure Suppressing Product Pages
Hey Guys, I've built some ecommerce sites using WooCommerce, and I've been auditing some of the sites to see why I'm not getting more traffic to my product pages. I have several informational blog posts and resources that are getting a lot of traffic, but my product pages aren't ranking very well. There are two things that I think could be causing the issue, but I could use some extra eyes on this. Products are listed several sub-categories down in the structure of the site. For example, this product is listed under a fifth level sub-category: /product-category/ ->FIRE SAFETY » FIRE EXTINGUISHERS » PORTABLE FIRE EXTINGUISHERS » FIRE EXTINGUISHER ACCESSORIES » FIRE EXTINGUISHER BRACKETS Also, I checked to see what Google's indexed under the /product/ directory, which is the default format for WooCommerce products. It looks like all of my products are given lower authority than other top-level directories, including /product-tag/ and /product-category/ It seems like an adjustment to how my products are structured in the site might go a long way. If you have any experience with this and could weigh in on it, I'd appreciate it.
Technical SEO | | robbinsinternational0 -
URL Structure On Site - Currently it's domain/product-name NOT domain/category/product name is this bad?
I have a eCommerce site and the site structure is domain/product-name rather than domain/product-category/product-name Do you think this will have a negative impact SEO Wise? I have seen that some of my individual product pages do get better rankings than my categories.
Technical SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
Migration to new URL structure
Hi guys, Just wondering what your processes are when moving a large site to a completely new URL structure on the same domain. Do you 301 everything from old page to new page, or are your more selective - i.e. only 301 pages that have a certain page authority, for example. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | A_Q0 -
Does rel="canonical" support protocol relative URL?
I need to switch a site from http to https. We gonna add 301 redirect all over the board. I also use rel="canonical" to strip some queries parameter from the index (parameter uses to identify which navigation elements were use.) rel="canonical" can be used with relative or absolute links, but Google recommend using absolute links to minimize potential confusion or difficulties. So here my question, did you see any issue using relative protocol in rel="canonical"? Instead of:
Technical SEO | | EquipeWeb0 -
Why do some URLs for a specific client have "/index.shtml"?
Reviewing our client's URLs for a 301 redirect strategy, we have noticed that many URLs have "/index.shtml." The part we don'd understand is these URLs aren't the homepage and they have multiple folders followed by "/index.shtml" Does anyone happen to know why this may be occurring? Is there any SEO value in keeping the "/index.shtml" in the URL?
Technical SEO | | FranFerrara0 -
Campaign Issue: Rel Canonical - Does this mean it should be "on" or "off?"
Hello, somewhat new to the finer details of SEO - I know what canonical tags are, but I am confused by how SEOmoz identifies the issue in campaigns. I run a site on a wordpress foundation, and I have turned on the option for "canonical URLs" in the All in one SEO plugin. I did this because in all cases, our content is original and not duplicated from elsewhere. SEOmoz has identified every one of my pages with this issue, but the explanation of the status simply states that canonical tags "indicate to search engines which URL should be seen as the original." So, it seems to me that if I turn this OFF on my site, I turn off the notice from SEOmoz, but do not have canonical tags on my site. Which way should I be doing this? THANK YOU.
Technical SEO | | mrbradleyferguson0 -
Different URLS for our multi language pages caused penalty?
Hi all, We have a website www.phoneboxlanguage.com with 4 different language versions (Spanish, French, Italian, German). We have all the different versions on totally different URLS. E.G the French URL is www.cours-telephone-anglais.com. Recently this month we saw a huge drop in SERPS for all the 'foreign' language pages. This had happened before for the Spanish and French, which we put down to keyword density issues, so created new URLS for those pages. However now all 4 foreign pages have dropped. Could this be due instead to a penalty for duplicate sites? The content is obviously different due to different languages, but the coding and templates for the sites are the same. How can we find out this is the case and what should we do? I was thinking after some research on the forum to create subfolders in the original (phoneboxlanguage.com) and then create 301 redirects, from the old dropped sites, or would their penalties be bad for our original site, if this were the case? We are obviously very keen to not further damage the site and the original site which remains o.k. Many thanks for your kind help. Quime.
Technical SEO | | Quime0 -
How to keep a URL social equity during a URL structure/name change?
We are in the process of making significant URL name/structure change to one of our property and we want to keep the social equity (likes, share, +1, tweets) from the old to the new URL. We have been trying many different option without success. We are running our social "button" in an iframe. Thanks
Technical SEO | | OlivierChateau0