Designing path structure - readability or keyword density
-
We are looking at redesigning our URL structure to accommodate our expansion. This gives us a chance to change the path, but we have found conflicting advice on readability vs. keyword density.
These are our three options.
mywebsite.com/s/birmingham/restaurants (Keep it short so that the keywords dominate the path)
or
mywebsite.com/search/birmingham/restaurants (Accurately describe the content on the page)
or
mywebsite.com/top/birmingham/restaurants (Be a bit spammy and include a word often associated with our inbound searches)
Does anyone have any experience on what works best?
-
Thanks for all responses, extremely useful.
-
Hi -
Here in this case, it comes to readability.
All have, Birmingham and restaurants are the 2nd and 3rd level subfolder, so they have the same impact.
In my view, it should be as simple as site.com/restaurants/birmingham, where the restaurants your main identifier of the keyword is closer to TLD.
Zomato.com does it very good, you can checkout that as well to inspire yourself.
Also booking.com is to some extent good.
If have to choose between the 3, i'd go with the first one
K
-
Hi,
I think your first option is the best. This is why I think so:
- I like short URLs - they look nicer and are less likely to be miss-typed
- The word 'search' is not one of your keywords, so unnescessary in the url
- You're right that using 'top' could be a 'bit spammy' - Also, if people's search behaviour changes and they stop searching for 'Top ...' then you may come to regret putting all your eggs in that basket (as it were). I personally wouldn't take the risk.
If you do change the URLs, make sure you do proper 301 redirects from page to page (e.g. old Brirmingham Restaurant page should forward to the new version of it, NOT just the homepage). Also, submit your xml via WMT, and with any super-important pages you can use the Fetch as Google tool which allows you to submit the page to Google's index.
Good luck with your site overhaul!
Amelia
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
-
Would you consider this title to be keyword stuffing or bad?
A competitor uses the following format for all of their meta titles: [Store Name] Voucher Codes, Cashback & Discount Codes | [Website Name] They do vary their titles slightly, depending on which keywords are searched for, for the particular store. What do you think about this title? I'm torn between it looking a little 'stuffy' but them also getting across the point that their page offers all of that.
On-Page Optimization | | vickluque0 -
Optimizing Product Keywords (that are similar)
Hi Guys Could someone let me know how varied my product keywords need to be? I'm about to add a variety of products to my site, and the only true way of differentiating them is by colour. Brown Hooded JacketGreen Hooded JacketRed Hooded JacketBlack Hooded JacketBrown Hooded Utility JacketGreen Hooded Utility JacketRed Hooded Utility JacketBlack Hooded Utility JacketAlso, am I optimizing my site correctly?Key Word - Brown Hooded JacketMy keywords are included in H1Enigma - Brown Hooded JacketPage TitleProduct Name & Key Word - London - Company NameURL,www.companyname.co.uk/brown-coats/enigma-hooded-jacketBody ContentThe key word "brown hooded jacket" is included and very described within the body of this specific pageImage TagBrown-Casual-Hooded-JacketMeta DescriptionKey word is used, should I choose to opt for this approach?I would really appreciate your help. Thanks, Faye
On-Page Optimization | | Faye2340 -
Is this (title) keyword stuffing?
"Animated Explainer Videos by Wick Video" "Video" is used twice. Could this hurt us?
On-Page Optimization | | WickVideo0 -
Changing URL Structure From Flat to Pyramid Theme
Hello Mozzers, I have an on-page SEO question regarding URL structure. A few months back we hired a full-time SEO person who is working on-page right now and she really wants us to completely re-due our URL restructure from a flat to pyramid style (example below). Current URL structure / page title is: Dog training Collars - K9electronics.com
On-Page Optimization | | k9byron
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/ Small Dog training Collars - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/small-dog-training-collars/ Einstein ET-300TS Mini Dog Training Collar - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/einstein-et-300ts-mini-remote-dog-trainer.html Suggested URL structure / page title change: Quality Dog Training Collars - Lowest Price Guarantee - K9electronics
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/ Dog Training Collars - Small Dog - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/small-dog/ Einstein ET-300TS Mini - Dog Training Collars - K9electronics.com
http://www.k9electronics.com/dog-training-collars/small-dog/einstein-et-300ts-mini I guess you could say we are the poster-boys for Google penalties and have received just about every penalty in the book. Panda, penguin algo penalties and a partial manual action for unnatural links. Several months ago we removed 1000's of in-bound links and had our manual action lifted a few months back and are now hovering around the top / mid 2nd page for all our big terms ...we used to be top 3 for everything. As we were removing bad links, we also completely redesigned the site and removed lots of categories and products and 95% of all our old, low quality content and replaced it with new, high quality content. The site was really slooooow, so we optimized it and moved it to a big dedicated server and tripled page load time. Added rich snippets, Google authorship, increased our FB and other social presences and much more ... I had also considered this URL structure change during the redesign because I had heard and read that it was good to do, but it required redirecting practically all our URL's which I know can hurt the site even more so then it already has been ... Our SEO says that as it sits now, our pages are competing with each other and really seems to think this is going to improve our rankings a lot ...after several weeks. My question is, at this stage in the game, is it really going to help a lot and give us more benefit compared to the 301 redirect link juice loss? Any comments and/or suggestions are very much appreciated!1 -
URL Structure
What's the best way to set up a url structure? When a user goes through the funnel should it show it in the url? Like this: domain.com/thickness/high-density/1-mil-plastic-bags (1 mil plastic bags is a subcategory - when the user is at this page they will see many products. When they select one - it brings them to a product detail page which I think should be done like this: domain.com/product-name regardless of the funnel that brought them there. Does this make sense?) or **domain.com/1-mil-plastic-bags ** Also, is there a limit of how many "/" could be used?
On-Page Optimization | | EcomLkwd0 -
The need of two-keyword optimization in the same page
Hi there! Due to the business model of my company I have to optimize two keywords in one page. I just asked about this question before and someone told me thant as long as they refer to the same concept and have almost the same "meaning", it is possible. The problem is how to face it up. I mean, there's one H1 label, one title, etc....and what's the "policy" of key distribution in the content in order to priorice these keywords? What you guys recommend? many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Keyword text block on homepage - keep or do away with?
One of my sites is getting a major refresh on the home page, which is good and bad. The legacy homepage was very long, and had a lot of text (thousands+ of words) in the body, with about 450+ links (internal/external) on the page. A ton of graphics, etc etc. Yuck. The revamped homepage is much improved. Very short, visual, fast, and SEO optimized. It's more of launching pad into the rest of the site. But, the text in the body is much less, perhaps a 100 words or so. The worry is that with so little text, matching the target kw count will appear as stuffing. The 'solution' was to include a visible text box at the bottom of the page, with about 300 words, basically what would typically appear in an 'about' section of a site. But instead, its located on the bottom of the homepage to beef up the pages content, and to avoid looking too 'stuffed'. Visually, its unattractive IMHO and while the text is good and informative, its under the fold and will likely not change that much going forward. This all seems very 10 years ago to me, but I'd like a second opinion. Is this box of text a good strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | EricPacifico0 -
Page title structure?
From an SEO and user perspective what structure do you recommend for page titles. For example (given that they shouldn't ideally be more than 70 characters) :- Keywords (maybe two or three) | Company Name | more keywords I understood the best place for the company name was about second place. Is this now the considered view taking into consideration 'branding' which has been flagged up as the way forward. Keywords are separated by the vertical bar | - any thoughts? For 'house keeping' pages such as Privacy Policy - should this be optmised or simply stated as 'privacy policy' Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | PH2920