Is it a problem if a URL has too many backslashes in its address?
-
The ecommerce platform of the site that I am working on generates URLs that contain ID Codes for each different product category, color variations, styles, etc.
An example of a URL for a specific product includes:
www.example.com/women/denim-jeans/py/c/109/np/108/p/3834.html
Is it a problem for search engine crawlers if the URL address has so many backslashes in its address?
Appreciate your feedback.
-
Thank you for all of your feedback.
Unfortunately, this website is a on a old propitiatory platform that requires to have these long URL strings, but thankfully there are no separate pages for each of the backslash categories.
For now, I have to accept having these long URLs and just make sure all the correct pages are submitted in sitemap.
Thank you again for you all of your feedback. This was very helpful!
-
To be clear, what type of cart system does the site use? VirtueMart? Magento?
I agree with the posts above, in that sometimes it doesn't hurt, but at the same time, you aren't doing the product pages any favors. Two ways to look at this would be:
1. Having the URL structure set up like you example will still get the pages indexed, if they are included in a sitemap, and submitted correctly, furthermore if the content on those pages is a good match.
2. Having the pages set up that way will limit the ranking potential of those pages, by having a long URL, without relevant keywords in place. Let me explain:
In your example:
www.example.com/women/denim-jeans/py/c/109/np/108/p/3834.htmlYou have the opportunity to potentially rank for "womens denim jeans" using that url. This somewhat limits the ranking potential of the items, as they are all tied into one specific category, that being "womens denim jeans". Lets look at another example:
www.example.com/women/denim-jeans/faded-wash/indigo-dye-item-details3834.html
In the above URL, you are much more specific in the style and type of jean it is, and a user will know (and a search engine) what the page is specifically about. Style, color, keyword, category, etc. Since you most likely have a large catalog of product types, why limit your item details to a bunch of unnecessary numbers and slashes?
I would also look at a way of using product markup to make the items stand out further in search results. Google likes to see "the complete package". Using clean specific URL's and schema product markup tells a much clearer pricture than /py/c/109/np/108/p/3834.html. Depending on the CMS used, there may be a component or plugin that takes care of the product markup for you, from the item description and details.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi there,
Ryan is correct - high numbers of subfolders like this aren't ideal. That takes into account real and virtual subfolders (i.e. "subfolders" that have no content on them but are generated by a CMS versus subfolders that contain landing pages).
Ideally, these would be rewritten to www.example.com/women/denim/product1.html, etc. You will need to check with the developers why the CMS creates these subfolders and what can be done about it.
Google is much better at indexing / ranking URLs like this than it was a few years ago, and it's not exactly a deathblow if you're told that this can't be changed. It's still not ideal though, so check whether it can be simplified.
-
I would want to have as few as possible. You have to ask yourself whether or not all those folders are actually needed. As far as indexing, it's more about the hops than the number of backslashes. For instance if a crawler has to go to /denim-jeans then to /py then /c then /c109 then /np then /108 then /p then /3834.html it will likely have some indexing issues, but if the next hop after /denim-jeans is from a link that goes to /py/c/109/np/108/p/3834.html then it likely wouldn't cause any issues for the crawler, but again it's a nasty structure and you have to ask yourself if it is all really necessary.
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
-
URL Changes Twice in the Same Year
I've got a new client with a great site, great off-page optimization and some scars and a hangover from a bad developer relationship. I'd be so grateful for your thoughts on this situation: Some time in the not-too-distant-past, the website is established and new content is posted. We'll call this Alpha. In April 2015, the client migrates to WordPress, implementing 301 redirects on every content page because of the capitalization issues of the old CMS. That means Alpha URLs are redirecting to Betas. Problem is, the new Beta WordPress URLs are the the permalink structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ and update by default when the page content is updated meaning that any updates to existing content cause another 301. It's my belief that for evergreen content, dates in the URL do nothing to help you and might even hurt from a user-experience standpoint, if not a search engine one. So, naturally, I'd like to move to the simple/%postname%/ structure, which would be Gamma. So, here's how I think we should fix it. Step 1: Update the sitemap and navigation and make the desired URL (Gamma) structure the default and the canonical. Step 2: Change the Alpha -> Beta redirects to Alpha -> Gamma Step 3: Add Beta -> Gamma redirects Anyone done this in the past? Anyone have any problems with it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LindsayDayton0 -
How to deal with URLs and tabbed content
Hi All, We're currently redesigning a website for a new home developer and we're trying to figure out the best way to deal with tabbed content in the URL structure. The design of the site at the moment will have a page for a development and within that you can select your house type, then when on the house type page there will be tabs displayed for the user to see things like the plot map, availability and pricing, specifications, etc. The way our development team are looking at handling this is for the URL to use a hashtag or a query string at the end of it so we can still land users on these specific tabs for PPC for example. My question is really, has anyone had any experience with this? Any recommendations on how to best display the urls for SEO? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J_Sinclair0 -
Sub Domains vs. Persistent URLs
I've always been under the assumption that when building a micro-site it was better to use a true path (e.g. yourcompany.com/microsite) URL as opposed to a sub domain (microsite.yourcompany.com) from an SEO perspective. Can you still generate significant SEO gains from a sub domain if you were forced to use it providing the primary (e.g. yourcompany.com) had a lot of link clout/authority? Meaning, if I had to go the sub domain route would it be the end of the world?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VERBInteractive0 -
Sudden increase in number of indexed URLs. How ca I know what URLs these are?
We saw a spike in the total number of indexed URLs (17,000 to 165,000)--what would be the most efficient way to find out what the newly indexed URLs are?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
How to deal with old, indexed hashbang URLs?
I inherited a site that used to be in Flash and used hashbang URLs (i.e. www.example.com/#!page-name-here). We're now off of Flash and have a "normal" URL structure that looks something like this: www.example.com/page-name-here Here's the problem: Google still has thousands of the old hashbang (#!) URLs in its index. These URLs still work because the web server doesn't actually read anything that comes after the hash. So, when the web server sees this URL www.example.com/#!page-name-here, it basically renders this page www.example.com/# while keeping the full URL structure intact (www.example.com/#!page-name-here). Hopefully, that makes sense. So, in Google you'll see this URL indexed (www.example.com/#!page-name-here), but if you click it you essentially are taken to our homepage content (even though the URL isn't exactly the canonical homepage URL...which s/b www.example.com/). My big fear here is a duplicate content penalty for our homepage. Essentially, I'm afraid that Google is seeing thousands of versions of our homepage. Even though the hashbang URLs are different, the content (ie. title, meta descrip, page content) is exactly the same for all of them. Obviously, this is a typical SEO no-no. And, I've recently seen the homepage drop like a rock for a search of our brand name which has ranked #1 for months. Now, admittedly we've made a bunch of changes during this whole site migration, but this #! URL problem just bothers me. I think it could be a major cause of our homepage tanking for brand queries. So, why not just 301 redirect all of the #! URLs? Well, the server won't accept traditional 301s for the #! URLs because the # seems to screw everything up (server doesn't acknowledge what comes after the #). I "think" our only option here is to try and add some 301 redirects via Javascript. Yeah, I know that spiders have a love/hate (well, mostly hate) relationship w/ Javascript, but I think that's our only resort.....unless, someone here has a better way? If you've dealt with hashbang URLs before, I'd LOVE to hear your advice on how to deal w/ this issue. Best, -G
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Celts180 -
URL for New Product
Hi, We run an established website (mindflash.com) selling online training software. We are getting ready to launch a new section of the site where our users can sell their own online training programs. This will be branded as the 'marketplace'. This section will have a main page, category pages, tag pages, search and individual course pages. In our URL structure, I'd love to target the word 'training courses' but I don't want to neglect the product brand either. Is it better to use /training-courses in the marketplace urls or to use /marketplace? Or is it better to use both like /marketplace-training-courses or /marketplace/training-courses? Option 1: Example main section page: mindflash.com/training-courses Example category page: mindflash.com/training-courses/software-training Option 2: Example main section page: mindflash.com/marketplace Example category page: mindflash.com/marketplace/software-training Option 3: Example main section page: mindflash.com/marketplace-training-courses Example category page: mindflash.com/marketplace-training-courses/software-training Option 4: Example main section page: mindflash.com/marketplace/training-courses Example category page: mindflash.com/marketplace/training-courses/software-training Which option is better and why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0 -
Changing Business Addresses
Anyone have a good local search "best practices" resource for advising a client who is changing business addresses (aside from cross your fingers). For example, order of updating local citations (website first, google places, others). Time frame for update to take effect? Other issues folks have faced in updating addresses? I regularly follow David Mihm, Mike Blumenthal, & Andrew Shotland, I was just curious what the Moz community might be able to add. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gyi0 -
How many articles should I write per day & how many backlinks should I get per day to be natural!
hey.. I"m working in review blog one day per 1 or 2 weeks and I post up to 6 articles one time; is it unnatural for SEO ? how many articles should I post in blog per day? another question..how many backlinks should I get to just one post? I'm using Magic Submitter software to get help but I don't get more than 50 backlinks one time..what's real number of backlinks should I get and for how much time to be 100% natural for Google? any helpful info about backlinks techniques worth to hear..thnx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | akitmane0