2 Question about URL structure
-
Hello guys
1 - I have a question about the best structure for URLs from the point of view of SEO:
Is it OK to use the URL as
mywebsite.com.br/long-tail-article
Or is better this
mywebsite.com.br/category/long-tail-article
2 - When part of my keyword is already in my "category", for example:
mywebsite.com.br/digital-marketing/digital-marketing-is-good
I leave it as it is, or in the following way:
mywebsite.com.br/digital-marketing-is-good
NOTE: Do not take into account that this URL would be different from other URLs in this category
-
'a user may remember a number easier than a url which is descriptive' - true. Tho, if you look at it from a search engine angle, CTR is a crucial factor - and even if the title of a page itself is a good discriminator, many people still do look at URLs.
Imagine a page title like 'We give away gold for free' and a URL path saying 'this-is-just-a-scam.html' . While this is an extreme example the analogy should hold up. And while 12345 probably does not mean anything negative to anyone (or only to very, very, very few people) it is not really meaningful.
Thus I don't agree with your premise and I'm with Heather when she's saying that your user should be the prime focus and her implication that Google's interest is in the user and will do what it takes to make them happy - and that's not just for commercial reasons.
I however completely am with you on your 'this depends on the size and nature of your site' comment!
General rule:
- keyword duplication is BAD: mywebsite.com.br/digital-marketing/digital-marketing-is-good would very likely be considered as SPAM
- short title are preferred (as per early 2012 and I've not heard anything else about that since then) - as Michael said before
- targeted landing pages are GOOD. I'd say that if you plan to have the category in the URL just for the URL's purpose - leave it be. But if you plan on making e.g. - digital-marketing/index.html a targeted landing page with additional content (i.e. not just a plain listing of the articles) the you can gain real value
- try to make all pages reachable from the homepage within 4 clicks or less. Category offer you a perfect way to do this - on top of providing good landing pages
What I'd do:
1.) Check if you and/or your team has got the time to provide and maintain bespoke content for category pages, e.g. digital-marketing. If not, then I'd tend not to bother with changing the URLs
2.) If you decide you have the time - GO FOR IT. Check how many duplications you'd really have for each of your designated categories. Might be best to manually change the title and/or have a script check your database for such duplications.Cheers,
Charly -
Yep... I agree... we get thousands of visitors every day through category pages.
-
not really my point - my point is categorisation on large sites is helpful to search engines and users. WP does this very well and I utilise it a whole bunch on my sites that use WP
-
It would not be a problem because I use Wordpress
-
This is exactly my fear, be regarded as SPAM.
-
thats not always the case, consider a user may remember a number easier than a url which is descriptive (eg .com/12345 vs .com/this-is-a-blog-post-title-and-url ) however the numbers aren't descriptive and so hold no real seo value
- this said regardless of what option is choosen Google could always decide to prefer another mechanism in ranking for urls - or totally ignore them
-
I think you should structure your URL from the point of view of the reader rather than Google - that way you future proof yourself against any Google updates.
-
this depends on the size and nature of your site. For instance if you've lots of posts about a topic within your site (say "social media" or "email marketing") it is best to have them as a category and your post title to follow. Otherwise you could have issues in that you end up needing to put "email-marketing" in each post url ... which isn't pretty to do manually
-
I'd be inclined to go shorter. I don't believe you're going to see any additional ranking benefits from having the keyword in the URL twice (might be different if the keyword was in the domain AND the URL, but even then...).
I'd be a little concerned that having the keyword in there twice might look spammy to Google, too.
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
-
Changing url (permalink) structure of website??
Currently I'm working on SEO of one website www.mocomi.com. I want to change url (permalink) structure of entire website which has more than 5000 pages. Currently website have structure of http://mocomi.com/tenali-raman-the-kings-condition/ Which I want to change it to http://mocomi.com/fun/stories/tenali-raman/tenali-raman-the-kings-condition/ Likewise I want to change entire website permalink url structure to make site architecture more SEO friendly. Which means I'am going to add only categories & subcategories before actual link. Kindly guide with following questions which I need to move forward with this step. How much is it worth to change URL structure? Checklist or factors I need to consider while making this decision? Is it a good practice to change URL's of entire website at once or Should I change it in Parts? How much time it takes google to rank those urls again? Which are the best practices to do so?
On-Page Optimization | | Mocomi1 -
Disadvantages of Migrating Website to New URL
Hi There, I am currently struggling with the ranking of my website. No matter how many initiatives I try (backlinking, blog commenting, social posting, etc.) I can't seem to make any progression in Google Search. I've done competitive metrics through Open Site Explorer and can't seem to really find the reason why my site is not ranking as well as my competitors. The only one possible glaring element I've thought about is my website URL. This company is in the heating and cooling industry and majority of my competitors have either "heating" or "cooling" or both in their website URL's but mine does not. Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on if changing my URL and then redirecting my current URL would be a step in the right direction help me to climb the rankings in Google Search? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Author Byline Question
What's the best practice for displaying author information at the beginning of an article? We're presently displaying it as: By <Author> • Jan 16, 2015 • <City>. We're considering making it even more concise by removing the term 'By'. Would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we did this? Any other ways we should optimize?
On-Page Optimization | | TheaterMania0 -
How do you handle URLs with slashes?
I asked this question before, but with a different scenario. I upgraded my plan to a more advanced cart and all of my URLs changed about 1.5 years ago. I knew nothing about redirects and such, so none of that was done. Basically, let's say my site was: http://www.abc.com, but when people actually visit my site, they are directed to https://www.abc.com/. I have asked my host about redirecting and she that it is not possible. In the past, the link shared has been just www.abc.com . Will this hurt my ranking? My second question is ...let's say I have a link http://www.abc.com/blog , but now, the link is http://www.abc.com/blog/ . Will I be affected, since all my old links omit the slash?
On-Page Optimization | | tiffany11030 -
URL Question
This url looks bad: http://www.patrickmunoz.com/#!classes/c1vw1 And when you click around the page change doesn't actually occur, it's a fade into the next page. I think this is a major problem for rankings. Although pages are crawled: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.patrickmunoz.com%2F&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j69i58j69i59l3j69i61.3548j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8 When I search for a simple page - "patrick munoz FAQs" nothing comes up:
On-Page Optimization | | tylerfraser
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.patrickmunoz.com%2F&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j69i58j69i59l3j69i61.3548j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=patrick+munoz+|+FAQs Do you think this is a bad url configuration? Thanks! Tyler0 -
Couple of noob questions
Hi, couple of easy questions for you guys... Im a web designer and my #1 keyword is web design huddersfield. I own the domain huddersfield.com, and i will have a page titled web design. Now do i target the web design page or the index page as i don't want keyword cannibalization, but is it better for my index page to be the landing page? #2 Considering that huddersfield.com is my domain should i set the title to: web design huddersfield or just web design? please help.
On-Page Optimization | | klsdnflksdnvl0 -
2 keyword title tag best format
I have a client that does ski and snowboard rentals in lake tahoe and not sure what the best way to optimize the home page title tag. Lake Tahoe Ski and Snowboard Rental
On-Page Optimization | | tahoemedia
Lake Tahoe Ski & Snowboard Rental
Ski & Snowboard Rental Lake Tahoe
Ski Rental | Snowboard Rental | Lake Tahoe Which one of these is the best or is it not even listed??? Thanks!0 -
Scripts question
My question is whether search engines will crawl the page before or after scripts run on the page. I have a H1 that will be replaced with a canvas by jquery script. Will search engines see the H1 or the canvas?
On-Page Optimization | | lojdqvist0