Keyword Domain URL structure
-
Hello all,
We have a domain with one of the primary keyword within the domain itself (audisite) and reading through some of the topics, having a keyword within the domain itself seems to be not as significant as we had assumed. We currently have a URL strucuture ( http://audisite.co.uk/new-audi/a4 ) which we were thinking of modifying to something like audisite.co.uk/a4 based on the premise that the 'audi' keyword is already in the domain itself.
Also in terms of URL optimization, which of these will be the most effective URL (if the content is exactly the same). Or is my whole approach incorrect to URL optimization fundamentally incorrect?
- /a4
- /new-audi-a4
- /new/audi-a4
- /new-audi/a4
- /new/audi/a4
I will be very grateful for any advice/suggestions/pointers. Thank you very much for your time.
-
No problem.
Glad to help.
Mike
-
Thank you very much Mike for taking the time to reply. I will take in your suggestion when redoing the structure. Much more clearer now.
-
No problem.
So, having keywords in your URL is really helpful for SEO, but don't over complicate it and don't stress about it
In the small amount of testing I have done, you probably wouldn't see a huge ranking difference between the different naming conventions as long as they are at the same level. Meaning you'd "probably" have the same ranking for /new-audi/a4 as you would /new/audi-a4.
To answer your question, a flat architecture is awesome to have from a crawler standpoint and from a user standpoint. If you have a landing page /new-audi and a "product" page /new-audi-a4 at the same level, that is great. It is easier for people to remember and share on social vs having it go down another level.
The only time this flat architecture can become a headache is when you have a ton of pages and trying to remember where everything is from a site structure point of view when you are managing things.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you once more for taking the time to reply.
Everything you said made sense. Just to clarify if make sure I am getting this correctly I will ask one final question. If I have the landing pages /new-audi and /used-audi with links (or a dynmically generated product listing in the case of used-audi) to the specific model, it would make sense to have a url strucuture like /new-audi/a4 or /used-audi/a4?
But will it be any more advantageous to have the URL as /new-audi-a4, /used-audi-a4 despite having the landing page that points to these models or do you think despite the deeper level in /new-audi/a4 won't be much of an issue as there would be a landing page pointing to each of the new audi model.
I hope I did not confuse you more. And thank you very much for your time. Very grateful for it.
-
Sure thing.
Yes. I was referring to the URL in the second portion of my original comment.
Right on. I wasn't completely following the reasoning behind "new", so that is why I suggested just /a4 or /audi-a4. After you explanation that you are having new and used, that makes perfect sense.
You are correct. It is another level deep and that makes it appear as though it does not hold as much importance from a structural point of view - that is why I would suggest it being /new-audi-a4 vs /new-audi/a4; however, it all depends on your site structure (although URL naming doesn't have to follow site structure). If you have /new-audi landing page, which has links to different cars, a4, a5, etc. then it would make sense to use the /new-audi and /used-audi format. If your site does not use that type of structure, it may seem confusing to someone who is just looking at the URL.
Does that make sense?
Mike
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you for the reply. Shorter URLs do make sense.
The second part I got a little confused with. You said "so I would feel comfortable using the product name "audi" at the page product level"; I presume you mean this is in the URL as the whole second paragraph seems like the reason for why I should be doing it?
My only concern of not going with either /a4 or /audi-a4 is because the domain will have both new and used audi. But the option /new-audi-a4 does seem like the best way forward here as I could simply change the new to used.
And if I may, is there anything concrete to use /new-audi-a4 rather than /new-audi/a4. The only reason I can see is that the second URL strucuture would mean the a4 is one level deeper than the first URL structure.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
-
Hi Niraj,
Shorter, higher level URLs "typically" perform better in the SERPs.
I personally would probably do either /a4 or /new-audi-a4 or even /audi-a4.
There is a difference between your domain (brand) and the page (product), so I would feel comfortable using the product name "audi" at the page product level, even though it is already in the domain - if that makes sense.
Hope this helps.
Mike
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 it Safe to do 301 Redirects on Tiered Expired Domains?
Is this considered a safe SEO friendly strategy to redirect expired domains using 301s to your higher tiered domains? Thank you!
Link Building | | SteveScott310 -
Domain vs. page SEO
Hi I'm new to SEO and trying to optimize one of my pages. However this page that I'm trying to optimize is not the homepage. Does it mean that since I have collected links from other pages to my homepage that the specific page I'm trying to SEO doesn't get any "link juice"? And how could this situation be corrected? Is the only way to get direct links to the page I'm trying to optimize?
Link Building | | agentti0 -
Keywords with Low Search Volume under 100
Friends, Generally if you follow all the traditional White Hat SEO methods including Fresh Content how much time it should take for keywords with around search volume of 90 (per month) to show up in Page 1 in Google US. Thank you
Link Building | | INN0 -
Question on getting new site with poor URLs indexed
For the website www.misslovegirls.com , with URLs like http://www.misslovegirls.com/goods.php?id=3706 is there any chance of getting these URL's indexed? Thanks!
Link Building | | onlinemktg10 -
External Followed Links in the Competitive Domain Analysis Report
In the Competitive Domain Analysis report, why does the number of my external followed links vary over time. Some weeks its high some weeks it's low. Doesn't seem to be a pattern.
Link Building | | PGD20110 -
Millions of links from one domain - unnatural?
I have a question: One of the sites that I work for has 3.1 million site-wide links (according to WM Tools) from one domain pointing to us. This domain has a Domain Authority of 93. We have (according to OSE) more than 3, 500 Domains linking to us. We have a Domain Authority of 88. In other words, one of those 3,500 domains is highly reputable, and is sending us 3.1 million site-wide links. This represents 60% of all the links pointing to us (again according to WMTools). Is this something to be worried about? Or delighted about? Would you consider it an unnatural link profile?
Link Building | | sichristie0 -
Low page rank directories but high domain authority?
I just paid someone to submit me to a few directories and I saw were I was listed on one of them today. The url page authority of where I was listed was a "1" with zero moz trust and zero moz authority. The root domain authority is a "69". Is page authority or domain authority the most important for links? I believe all the directories I was submitted to have url page authority of "1". ( I watched a video yesterday and I think the head guy said that page authority was most important but I am not sure.
Link Building | | Boodreaux1 -
Mutiple domains pointing on the same web site issues
We have in out company lots off different domains pointing to the same web site (On for most major countries actually...) . Unfortunately this was done by having all the DNS names to point to the same IP address to the target web site, and not by using a redirect as should have been done. As most of the pages on the web site are linked internally (All the pages of the site links at least to the front page), this resulted to have all the different domains linking one to each other causing artificial external backlinks to our main .com web site. I just wonder if google is giving us a penallity for this backlinks ? Also this causes the same content to be shared among different domains, resulting probably to self competition for keywords. Should we now remove all other domains resulting to a loss of these "artificial backlinks" ?
Link Building | | opic0