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.
Sizes and numbers in friendly urls - syntax
-
Ok, I'm trying to establish some business rules of syntax for SEO friendly URLS.
I'm doing this for an OpenCart online store which uses a SEO-url field to construct the "friendly URL's". The good news of that is I have total control over the urls' the bad news is I had to do some tricky Excel work to populate them.
That all said, I have a problem with items that have sizes. This is a crafts store so many of the items are differentiated by size. Examples:
Sleigh Bells, come in 1/2", 3/4", 1", 1 1/2" etc.
So far Ive tried to stay away from inch mark " by spelling it out. Right now its inch but could be in.
The numbers, fractions, sizes etc. create some ghastly friendly URL's. Is there any wisdom or syntax standards out there that would help me. I'm trying to avoid this:
www.mysite.com//index.php?route=craft-accessories/bells/sleigh-bells/sleigh-bells-1-one-half-inch-with-loop
I realize that the category (sleigh-bells) is repeated in the product name but there are several 1 1/2" items in the store.
Any thoughts would be useful, even if it's links to good SEO sites that have mastered the myriad of issues with dimensions in the urls.
thanks
-
I'll have to dig deeper than my local big-box retail store. This is a url from a random screw at Home Depot:
This product exhibits the issue. Product name, size (8 x 2 1/2), style (Phillips, Bugle Head), Thread (Coarse), Point (sharp), Coating etc.
-
This is a good question and harkens back to original data modeling. Each size item is a different sku. There are modules for OpenCart that will make a "series" record to mask via interface that they are all different records (think click on different color) but in our case they have different sku's, can be out of stock, can even have different prices. The nature of the crafts store is American Indian supplies. So just in seed beads there are five common sizes, up to 200 different colors per size and some of those can have faceted beads or non-faceted (we call them cuts). Add all that up and there are a ton of products that come in and out of stock etc.
That's it generally. My comment about sizes is that there are many many things across the materials (bells, silver broaches, etc.) that are chosen by the buyer by material (brass vs silver) but then by size (1", 1.5" etc.) The size is a key component so since each one is a different "product record" it will naturally have its own URL. All these inches, millimeters, fractions and odd sizes (thread come D, O, OO, YO etc.) it's enough to make one bonkers. I have an SEO url for each product and am looking for input from others thougths before I go medieval on shortening them.
Hope that answers your question.
-
Some very powerful resources shared by Patrick as always but while I was reading the question several ideas were popping up in my mind.
You are saying you have several different products that are in different sizes. If this is the case, why not you make it one product and in the product section offer the size in the dropdown? #justwondering
In my opinion the best URL structure for you would be domain.com/category/product-name.php
Once you decide what URL structure you will follow, do go through the instruction given by Patrick so that there should be no technical problem with regards to indexing and ranking.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi John
Okay cool - keep me posted - want to make sure you get to here you need to be! Good luck!
-
Thanks. I've read many of these but will do so again looking for details on the technical data in the URL. It strikes me that hardware stores (Home Depot and Lowes) must have this issue with screws etc. Will go there too.
-
Hi John
Take a look at the following resources:
URL Best Practices (Moz)
15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs (Moz)
SEO Cheat Sheet: Anatomy of A URL (Moz)
SEO Optimal Ecommerce URLs (PracticalEcommerce)
Information Architecture for SEO - Whiteboard Friday (Moz)
Canonicalization (Moz - in case aliases or parameters appear)Don't forget to update your sitemap, upload it to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools, and also check your internal links so they are up to date.
There is a lot here, but these resources should help you get started on structuring your website and also your URLs in a logical and user friendly fashion. Let me know if you need anymore help! 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
-
Google is indexing bad URLS
Hi All, The site I am working on is built on Wordpress. The plugin Revolution Slider was downloaded. While no longer utilized, it still remained on the site for some time. This plugin began creating hundreds of URLs containing nothing but code on the page. I noticed these URLs were being indexed by Google. The URLs follow the structure: www.mysite.com/wp-content/uploads/revslider/templates/this-part-changes/ I have done the following to prevent these URLs from being created & indexed: 1. Added a directive in my Htaccess to 404 all of these URLs 2. Blocked /wp-content/uploads/revslider/ in my robots.txt 3. Manually de-inedex each URL using the GSC tool 4. Deleted the plugin However, new URLs still appear in Google's index, despite being blocked by robots.txt and resolving to a 404. Can anyone suggest any next steps? I Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Tom3_150 -
Same URL for languages sub-directories
Hi All, I have a main domain and 9 different subdirectories for languages, example: www.example.com/page.html www.example.com/uk/page-uk.html www.example.com/es/page-es.html we are implementing hreflang tags for the languages, but we are thinking to get rid of the dashes on the languages URL: -uk or -es, so it will be: www.example.com/page.html www.example.com/uk/page.html www.example.com/es/page.hrml would this be a problem? to have same page names even if they are in different subdirectories? would we need to add canonical tags, at lease for the main domain URLs? www.kornferry.com/page.html Thank you, Rachel
Technical SEO | | RaquelSaiz0 -
301 redirect syntax for htaccess
I'm working on some htaccess redirects for a few stray pages and have come across a few different varieties of 301s that are confusing me a bit....Most sources suggest: Redirect 301 /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html or using some combination of: RewriteRule + RewriteCond + RegEx I've also found examples of: RedirectPermanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html I'm confused because our current htaccess file has quite a few (working) redirects that look like this: Redirect permanent /pageA.html http://www.site.com/pageB.html This syntax seems to work, but I'm yet to find another Redirect permanent in the wild, only examples of Redirect 301 or RedirectPermanent Is there any difference between these? Would I benefit at all from replacing Redirect permanent with Redirect 301?
Technical SEO | | SamKlep1 -
Suite Numbers and Schema
A potentially stupid question. Is the suite number included within the tag, or should it sit outside of it? The reason I ask is because (a) I've seen it where the suite number sits outside that tag and (b) Google My Business best practices, I've been told (by Google support), is to include the suite in the second address line. I'm wondering if that translates in some way to the local schema on your site. On the other hand, it makes sense to include your suite number within the streetAddress span tag, but sometimes what makes sense doesn't really make sense when you know more, so I'm just covering my bases. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | nowmedia11 -
How do I deindex url parameters
Google indexed a bunch of our URL parameters. I'm worried about duplicate content. I used the URL parameter tool in webmaster to set it so future parameters don't get indexed. What can I do to remove the ones that have already been indexed? For example, Site.com/products and site.com/products?campaign=email have both been indexed as separate pages even though they are the same page. If I use a no index I'm worried about de indexing the product page. What can I do to just deindexed the URL parameter version? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | BT20090 -
Spaces (actual spaces) in URL
Hi all, Is there a huge loss of SEO performance if a URL shows spaces with an actual space (i.e. %20) in the URL rather than a "-" (or indeed a "_")? I know the preferred option is to have a "-", but I am just wondering if it is worth our effort to manually change the "%20" to a "-" in all the instances? Thanks 🙂 Diana
Technical SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0 -
Best URL-structure for ecommerce store?
What structure will recommend to the product pages? Lets make an example with the keyword "Luxim FZ200" With category in url:
Technical SEO | | gojesper
www.myelectronicshop.com/digital-cameras/luxim-FZ200.html With /product prefix:
www.myelectronicshop.com/product/luxim-FZ200.html Without category in url:
www.myelectronicshop.com/luxim-FZ200.html I have read in a blog post that Paddy Moogan recommend /lluxim-FZ200.html - i think i prefer this version too. But I can see that many of the bigger ecommerce stores are using a /product prefix before the product name. What is the reason for this? and what is best practice?0 -
Singular vs plural in urls
In keyword research for an ecommerce site, I've found that widget, singular gets a lot more searches than widgets, plural AND is much less competitive. Is it better for SEO purposes to have the URLs (and matching title tags) in the catalog as /brass-widget.html, /steel-widget.html, etc., or /brass-widgets.html, etc.? I'm worried that a) searches for widgets will pass by the singular urls but not vice versa, and b) the singular form will strike visitors as bad grammar. Any advice?
Technical SEO | | AmericanOutlets0