The value of changing URL structure
-
Dear Moz members,
There have been many questions on this forum on this topic but I cannot find one that completely answers my question.
We launched our new website about 7 months ago and the website contains around 3.000 product pages. The average page authority of the product pages is quite still quite low (12). The URL structure is built like this: www.website.com/catalog/ID/productname/ (with right keywords in the product name). So e.g the current URL is
Our competitors rank higher on certain keywords while page authority (and DA) are significantly lower. Their URL structure is set up like this: www.website.com/productname/. Our most import keyword is "grafmonumenten" and the link we would like to rank on is: https://www.denhollandsche.nl/grafmonumenten/
My question now is:
1: how important is the length/depth of the URL structure?
2: is it beneficial for us to change the structure (www.website.com/productname/) use permanent redirects? My expierence is that changing the 'page url' can cause a short term drop in the serps, but can have positive effects on the longer term.Thanks for helping me out!
-
Dear Devanur, Yiannis,
Thanks a lot for your thorough argumentation on this. There are a few competitors that use the folders in the URL for keyword spamming purposes and I definitely don't want to pursue such a strategy. As the authority is at quite a low level, I prefer optimizing the site structure right now instead of waiting another year. Especially as most pages don't rank to well currently.
Again, thanks a lot for your help guys!
Best regards,
Martijn
-
Hi there, the length/depth of the URL structure is very important. The deeper it is, the harder it would be to rank high in the search engines. This also depends on how authoritative the domain is and other factors like the page authority itself.
It is highly recommended to place the resources as close as possible to the root by eliminating unnecessary folders.
If possible, I personally would recommend you to go with a shorter URL structure and as you mentioned, you can deploy a 301 permanent redirection mechanism to pass on the SEO goodies to the new URLs. You can expect a temporary loss in rankings but everything should be fine within 3 to 6 weeks. Also while restructuring the URLs, please take enough care not to include anything that does not convey a clear hierarchy. The URLs should be as short as possible and contain the target keywords/phrases with word separators like hyphens (these are recommended over others like an underscore). Those were my two cents. Good luck my friend.
Best,
Devanur Rafi.
-
Hello,
First of all and as an advise I would use 301 only to good/high traffic pages and not to every single page. I suspect you run an ecommerce site and I have bad experience by changing url structures to similar sites, specially the ones that uses widgets for products so the less the better (if ofcourse that is the case).
Shortening your URL length will definitely help you and I see no harm in it. Matt Cutts in particular said that if there are more than 5 words "[Google] algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.”
In regards to the depth, the closer your keyword is to the domain name the more weight and important it will be considered by google. So for example if you are selling running shoes and right now your url is
www.website.com/catalog/ID/running-shoes then you should make it
www.website.com/running-shoesI am not an expert with ID though so maybe someone else can jump in and give us insights but I think the example above will be a good change.
Hope this helps
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 from www to non-www impacting page authority?
I moved my website in May from Wix to Wordpress. Since then the home page authority has dropped from 27 to 16. The old website displayed as www.ajlansell.co.uk, but the new site is set to ajlansell.co.uk without the www (this was set by my hosting company). I tried changing the settings in Wordpress to www.etc, and the home page bounces back up to a page authority of 27 - but it messes up the menus and some other elements on the page so that the page is not displayed correctly. Is there any other way I can get that page authority back? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Photowife0 -
URL Structure Suggestion
Hi
On-Page Optimization | | sandeep.clickdesk
My site url: http://goo.gl/AiOgu1
We are working on URL structure of our website. I have one query about URL structure.
Which one is good URL structure according to user and SEO prospective.
The targeted keyword for the particular page is "wordpress live chat". Is it worthful to rewrite the present url "https://www.abc.com/wordpress" to "https://www.abc.com/wordpress-live-chat" Please suggest.0 -
Url structure
Hi Guys, Wondering what is better for url structure say for example a key word "slow cooker" example.com/slowcooker or example.com/slow-cooker ? Thank you 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | GetApp0 -
Getting Google to see major changes?
I am making some big changes to my site based on Moz's advice. How can I get google to see all of them? I submitted them to Google Webmasters. Is that the best thing to do? How long until Google updates all my pages?
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Changing the Home Page Title
The following question is for an eCommerce site: We have a home page title that has been the same for a few years. I would like to keep the keywords that already exist, but move them into different positions based on seasonality. Format will be (company name) | (keywords). Current format (company name) - (keywords). Rest of the page titles onsite are formatted (keyword)/(product name) | (company name) I think having the same keywords, but in a different order wouldn't hurt us in the SERPs. What are your thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | kennyrowe0 -
Rename index.php or keyword in URL?
It is important for me to get good search results for keyword + city name For instance: tulips amsterdam What would be better: renaming index.php or adding the cityname to the URL? www.example.com/amsterdam/tulips OR www.example.com/pages/tulips-amsterdam
On-Page Optimization | | svdg0 -
Which method should I use for my URL structure?
I have an existing site that is currently utilizing a structure that is like this: http://www.mysite.com/Ohio/City-of-Cleveland-PRODUCT-NAME Should I restructure it like: http://www.mysite.com/Ohio/City-of-Cleveland/Product-Name We are doing very well with very specific searches already but are sometimes coming in 2nd and 3rd place. For example: If I search for CLEVELAND PRODUCT NAME I always come up in the top three and about 60% of the time I am #1. I want to make it better. We have only launched in 4 states but plan on launching an additional 4 states over the next few weeks and I want to make sure we are building things properly. Any feedback would be wonderful. As usual, thanks everyone!! -Alex
On-Page Optimization | | dbuckles0 -
Long or Short URLs. Who's Coming to Dinner?
This has been discussed on the forums in some regard. My situation. Example 1 Long Keyword URL: www.abctown.com/keyword-for-life-helping-keywords-everywhere-rank-better Example 2 Short Keyword URL: www.abctown.com/keyword In both examples I want to improve rankings for the "keyword" phrase. My current URL is example 1. And I've landed a page one ranking in Google (7) with that URL. In attempts to improve rankings further (top 5), I was toying with the idea of going simpler with all my URLs in favor of the example 2 model. Might this method help or hurt my current rankings? In recent articles I've read it seems that going with the simpler more human approach to my SEO efforts. Any thought would be appreciated. Cheers,
On-Page Optimization | | creativedepartment0