URL Structure for a local listing site

[nunoz]

Hi -

We have a site that offers customers with wide range of local businesses information. We have URL structure for those these days like this -

site.com/listings/plumbers/ca/sfo

However here the "listings" doesn't add any value and are confusing for users who want to remember it, hence we decided to make it cleaner. The question here is, which one of the two should we do and why?

1. site.com/plumbers/ca/sfo

or

2. site.com/ca/sfo/plumbers

Any help on this matter would help.

[_nitman]

I'm working on URL structure for the same business model. Loved your answer Jane

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

Which structure is best depends on the structure of the website from an information architecture point of view more than anything else. For example, do you have a main California page, to which you link to a San Francisco page, on which all the services in SF are listed? Or do you have a landing page for professions such as plumbing, to which you link to different areas, i.e. California and San Francisco?

If California is the parent and SF / plumbing are under that, then /ca/sfo/plumbing would make sense. And vice versa.

I would say, however, that you should only go through the process of 301 redirecting existing URLs if you feel that the site is at a clear disadvantage because of the current URL structure. You can lose a little authority when you 301 one URL to another, and rankings can suffer / fluctuate as a result. Most go back to roughly where they were before, but this is not guaranteed. We generally advise avoiding 301s / URL changes unless it is undeniably necessary.

Cheers,

Jane