Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Recommendations on the URL Structure When Posting Blogs
-
Sites are adopting different URL structures for posting blogs (examples below).
Quicksprout ( www.domain.com/dateposted/blogposttitle)
Moz (www.domain.com/blog/blogposttitle)
SEO Book (www.domain.com/blogposttitle)
What do you recommend?
-
The solution is simple. Remember usability is key to the user experience. If you have a blog then place the blog/ in the URL. Think of an e-commerce website. You want to categorize items correctly. You don't want customers finding fridges in the microwaves category
-
Hi again
Utilize the /blog/ in the URL. Otherwise, you're creating a flat architecture to your site. Always include /blog/ in your URL if it is in fact a blog piece of content.
-
Thanks for your opinion Andrew. Wondering how much of an impact it makes if you dont utilize the "blog" in the URL structure and add in the Title directly (www.domain.com/title) especially when going after competitive keywords.Logically it would make more sense to have a structure like this (www.domain.com/blog/category/title)
-
Good point Patrick.
-
The first question to answer is if the site itself is a blog... or if it's a website that also has a blog. If it's the latter and the blog lives at www.yoursite.com/blog/, then the structure should obviously always include the /blog/.
Responding to your 3 examples in order:
Quicksprout's structure is a little odd in that their blog lives at /blog/, but the individual posts do not. A bit strange from both a human usability and bot crawling hierarchy standpoint. Other than that, including the date is helpful in terms of telling the user/bots how current the post is and differentiating it from similarly named posts on the same blog. That said, it pushes the title/topic keywords further out in the URL.
Moz uses /blog/, which again makes the most sense, but they've foregone including the date. This, however, lets them get the topic/title keywords to appear earlier in the URL.
SEO Book, like Quicksprout, oddly strips out the /blog/ directory from the URL. Other than that, their strategy is the same as Moz.
The winner here, in our opinion, seems to be Moz. The /blog/ remains when you're on individual posts which makes sense to both humans and bots. They don't include the date, but historically that's not been critical.
-
Hi there
I have always been a fan of the /blog/blog-title lay out, but it's really up to you on how you want to structure your URL. The reason I like this structure is because if it's an older post, but still valid, then users won't automatically disregard it because of the date in the URL. But really, both ways have their benefits.
Here are some reasons:
Reasons to include dates Reasons not to include dates Dates in URLs Q+A
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
Strategies for Enhancing Lead Generation from Blog Posts
Hello Moz Community, I've been running a blog ( www[dot]arrify[dot]com ) for a while, focused on Salesforce. I'm looking to enhance my lead-generation efforts through my blog content. I would appreciate insights and strategies on the following: SEO Best Practices: How can I optimize my blog posts for better search engine visibility to attract more potential leads? Content Engagement: What types of content (e.g., infographics, videos, in-depth guides) have been most effective for engaging readers and encouraging them to provide their contact information? CTA Placement: Where is the most effective placement for calls-to-action within a blog post to maximize lead capture without detracting from user experience? Lead Capture Forms: Are there any recommended practices for designing lead capture forms that encourage sign-ups? Any specific examples or case studies would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!
Content Development | | Kritikgarg0 -
Blog post generating irrelevant traffic. What should I do with it?
I have a blog post that has been generating more than 75% of my website's traffic month over month.-averaging about 1000 views a month. Awesome that so many people are finding and benefiting from this post, however it is really skewing my traffic. I have an 87% bounce rate, and I'm only ranking in terms related to this post as opposed to industry related terms. I'm not sure what to do with this blog post. I want to be able to better evaluate my website's performance and be sure I'm targeting the right audience in order to gain more leads. Would a 'noindex' or 'nofollow' be appropriate here? Thanks!
Content Development | | Ali_DeLeg0 -
Blog.xyz.com
I have a site that is running its blog on www.blog.xyz.com and I am looking for ways to increase Google traffic. Would it be better to running the blog on something like: www.xyz.com/blog instead?
Content Development | | kevgrand0 -
Can We Publish Duplicate Content on Multi Regional Website / Blogs?
Today, I was reading Google's official article on Multi Regional website and use of duplicate content. Right now, We are working on 4 different blogs for following regions. And, We're writing unique content for each blog. But, I am thinking to use one content / subject for all 4 region blogs. USA: http://www.bannerbuzz.com/blog/ UK: http://www.bannerbuzz.co.uk/blog/ AUS: http://www.bannerbuzz.com.au/blog/ CA: http://www.bannerbuzz.ca/blog/ Let me give you very clear ideas on it. Recently, We have published one article on USA website. http://www.bannerbuzz.com/blog/choosing-the-right-banner-for-your-advertisement/ And, We want to publish this article / blog on UK, AUS & CA blog without making any changes. I have read following paragraph on Google's official guidelines and It's inspire me to make it happen. Which is best solution for it? Websites that provide content for different regions and in different languages sometimes create content that is the same or similar but available on different URLs. This is generally not a problem as long as the content is for different users in different countries. While we strongly recommend that you provide unique content for each different group of users, we understand that this may not always be possible. There is generally no need to "hide" the duplicates by disallowing crawling in a robots.txt file or by using a "noindex" robots meta tag. However, if you're providing the same content to the same users on different URLs (for instance, if both example.de/ and example.com/de/ show German language content for users in Germany), you should pick a preferred version and redirect (or use the rel=canonical link element) appropriately. In addition, you should follow the guidelines on rel-alternate-hreflang to make sure that the correct language or regional URL is served to searchers.
Content Development | | CommercePundit0 -
Locating Guest Blogging Niches
Hey Folks, Does anybody have advice on tools I could use to locate blogs on specific topics? My plan is to approach the webmasters and offer guest blogging services. I know I could just do a google search for something like "KEYWORD blogs" but I thought I'd see if there is anything more sophisticated out there. Thanks, Rich
Content Development | | Rich-O0 -
How many categories should you have within a blog / Wordpress Site for SEO?
Hi Guys I am just wondering whether or not for SEO purposes it is better to have a small number of categories for your blog posts to fit into as opposed to numerous ones. The reason I ask is that I have one site which is fairly new to the search engines - 8 months old which has 7 general categories within the blog for instance "rail contractors", "railway construction" "airport construction" etc I have another site which is 10 years old which has built up 25 different types of categories for instance brand design, brand development, brand management (i guess you could put all these under 1 category "branding"? We've been writing lots of press for both sites... yet the younger site is getting more coverage on Google page 1. Would this be because the blogs / press are more concentrated under a specific category as opposed to being spread thinly throughout the site? Any help would be appreciated. Debs 🙂
Content Development | | lethalmarketing0 -
Guest blogging resources
Mornin' Anyone have any guests blogging resources to find guest bloggers and blogs to guest post on? I've been using My Guest Blog but it runs dry after a while. Thanks
Content Development | | Martin_S0 -
Posts vs Pages and Rankings Differ Greatly
I use wordpress for most of my sites and generally have a post 'news' section. What I've noticed is that just about every time a post will always rank much higher and much faster than a 'page'. As long as I don't let it get buried in the news archives it continues to rank well, better than if I were to create a 'page'. Is there any sort of reason this might occur? I'd like to be able to just create 'pages' but at this point in time it makes no sense.
Content Development | | GYMSN0