Are (ultra) flat site structures better for SEO?
-
Noticed that a high-profile site uses a very flat structure for there content. It essentially places most landing pages right under the root domain folder.
So a more conventional site might use this structure:
- www.widgets.com/landing-page-1/
- www.widgets.com/landing-page-1/landing-page-2/
- www.widgets.com/landing-page-1/landing-page-2/landing-page-3/
This site in question - a successful one - would deploy the same content like this:
So when you're clicking deeper into the nav. options the clicks always roll up to the "top level."
Top level pages are given more weight by SEs but conventional directory structures are also beneficial seen as ideal. Why would a site take the plunge and organize content in this way? What was the clincher?
-
What if your site is a large ecommerce site? I'm working with someone who just had their site rebuilt and none of their pages fall into a hierarchy category>category options> product. You go to the category page and then when you go to another, your url extension is completely unique. Is this going to hurt them in the long run?
Keep I'm already having them change some of the URLs because they are useless extensions that don't match the pages and are no good for SEO that way.
Should they seriously consider restructuring too?
Thanks!
-
I agree with these guys that the link structure is what matters. Some of my sites have pages 3 levels deep, but direct links from the top of the home page so they get plenty of link juice from that.
A good reason for a flat architecture is simply to have a short, sweet URL that's easy to remember and share.
It might also just be a byproduct of the CMS that they're using, where product or article pages are given top-level URLs, and category pages are just interstitial pages of links. One advantage of this is being able to re-categorize -- create new category pages and retire ones that aren't paying off -- without having to move/redirect the actual product pages. I do this a lot, for both article and product sites.
-
I haven't seen URL structures as a deal breaker when it comes to ranking, other than when it's full of session IDs, variable strings, and is a massively large URL. Mostly I consider using folder names for tracking purposes and try to keep them short for the most part. That way I can plug in a few to analytics and have a pretty good idea of that area of the site's performance. SEOmoz wrote a great article on this type of analysis at: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-powerful-analytics-tip-every-website-should-employ
You could accomplish the same thing with URL naming convention, but a folder would give you a quick way to organize and allow you to use shorter URL names. Back to the SEOmoz example, their folder names are extremely short, and sacrifice keyword targeting for the sake of length. As EGOL says, links are going to matter more than the word(s) in your folder name.
-
Top level pages are given more weight by SEs but conventional directory structures are also beneficial seen as ideal.
I am not so sure about this. I think that the weight is determined more by the linkage structure rather than the folder structure....
.... but would like to hear from anyone who has done actual testing on this.
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
-
SEO for Parallax Website
Hi, Are there any implications of having a parallax website and the URL not changing as you scroll down the page? So basically the whole site is under the same URL? However, when you click on the menu the URL does change? Cheers
Technical SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
URL Structure
Hi, Hope you are all well. On our website we have a 'blog' and a 'news' section. The blog is located on "/blog" - but when you click on a post the url structure changes to /name-of-article and the blog subdomain isn't included. Would it be better to have "blog/name-of-article as this would then make the blog perform better in search results? Also, if our news page is under /news - but when you click on an article it changes to /news-article/name-of-article Wouldn't it be better to have /news/name-of-article Thanks a lot!! 🙂
Technical SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Should we remove category paths for better SEO?
We're looking to build some serious content and capitalise on long-tail keyword traffic for our sub-category pages, example for targeted keyword "designer dining tables". Example of current link: www.website.com/designer-furniture/designer-dining-tables.html Would removing the category paths help? Example result - www.website.com/designer-dining-tables More user friendly URLs and better for SEO would you suggest? The only problem is, if we removed the paths would this have a hit on our traffic? Any advice would be much appreciated. We are using Magento platform.
Technical SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
When Should You Start SEO?
I am launching a new website (related to IT services) on Monday 6th May 2013. What should be my SEO/SMO/PPC strategy for a brand new website with new domain ? I have a blog within the website as well. Is it better to promote internal blog or should i focus on external bogs like wordpress ?
Technical SEO | | afycon0 -
Is adding reviews to your site using schema structured data markup considered duplicating content?
A client of mine whats to add reviews from other sites such as Judys Book and Yahoo to their site. (Yes the actual content of what was posted in the review. They are proud of what their clients are saying). I am not sure if using schema mark up and including the review body on the clients web site was safe or would it be considered duplicate content? Is there a "good practice" for this? Any assistance or suggestions are welcomed. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | mgordon0 -
What can we do to improve our site
Hi. I am hoping that some of you can help me with the in2town site www.in2town.co.uk The site is a news/lifestyle magazine site. The site is a cross between, huffington post, digital spy, female first and the sun newspaper. Basically the site is a news site as well as covering showbiz news, travel news, health news and advice etc What i would like is for people to look at the site and let me know what they feel i should do to improve the site to make it better for our readers and to gain more readership. I would also like to hear from people on how they find moving around the site as well as the speed of the site. At the moment the site is with an american hosting company and i am in the process of talking to UK hosting companies to move the site. The site is currently on a dedicated server. It would mean a lot if people could give me their advice on how to improve the site and make it a beter experience for our readers while at the same time being able to generate income with the site. Just a quick note, all content is original and we have a number of people who write for the site. many thanks
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
How can you get the right site links for your site?
Hello all, I have been trying to get Google to list relevant site links for my site when you type in our brand name, Loco2 or for when Loco2 comes up in a search result. Different things come up when you search Loco2 and Loco 2. We would like site links to look like how they do when you search Loco 2. However Loco2 is our brand name, NOT Loco 2. Does anyone know why Google is doing this and whether we can influence results? We have done as much as possible via Google webmaster, in terms of specifying the links we DO NOT want Google to list for Loco2. However, when you search "Loco2", results only show simple site links. Ideally what we want is: Loco2 to be recognised as the brand NOT Loco 2 The same results (substantial, identical) for Loco2 as for Loco 2 (think o2 and o 2) For the site links to reflect the main pages of our site (Times & Tickets, Engine Room forum etc.) Many thanks in advance! Anila
Technical SEO | | anilababla0