Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. What's the best possible URL structure for a local search engine?

    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.

    What's the best possible URL structure for a local search engine?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    8
    2612
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • _nitman
      _nitman last edited by

      Hi Mozzers,

      I'm working at AskMe.com which is a local search engine in India i.e if you're standing somewhere & looking for the pizza joints nearby, we pick your current location and share the list of pizza outlets nearby along with ratings, reviews etc. about these outlets.

      Right now, our URL structure looks like www.askme.com/delhi/pizza-outlets for the city specific category pages (here, "Delhi" is the city name and "Pizza Outlets" is the category) and www.askme.com/delhi/pizza-outlets/in/saket for a category page in a particular area (here "Saket") in a city. The URL looks a little different if you're searching for something which is not a category (or not mapped to a category, in which case we 301 redirect you to the category page), it looks like www.askme.com/delhi/search/pizza-huts/in/saket if you're searching for pizza huts in Saket, Delhi as "pizza huts" is neither a category nor its mapped to any category. We're also dealing in ads & deals along with our very own e-commerce brand AskMeBazaar.com to make the better user experience and one stop shop for our customers.

      Now, we're working on URL restructure project and my question to you all SEO rockstars is, what can be the best possible URL structure we can have? Assume, we have kick-ass developers who can manage any given URL structure at backend.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AlanBleiweiss
        AlanBleiweiss @_nitman last edited by

        In regard to shorter URLs:

        The goal is to find a proper balance for your needs.  You want to group things into sub-groups based on proper hierarchy, however you also don't want to go too deep if you don't have enough pages/individual listings deep down the chain.

        So the Moz post you point to refers to that - at a certain point, having too many layers can be a problem. However there is one one single correct answer.

        The most important thing to be aware of and consider is your own research and evaluation process for your situation in your market.

        However, as far as what you found most people search for, be aware that with location based search, many people don't actually type in a location when they are doing a search.  Except Google DOES factor in the location when deciding what to present in results.  So the location matters even though people don't always include it themselves.

        The issue is not to become completely lost in making a decision either though - consider all the factors, make a business decision to move forward with what you come up with, and be consistent in applying that plan across the board.

        What I mean in regard to URLs and Breadcrumbs:

        If the URL is www.askme.com/dehli/saket/pizza/pizza-hut/  the breadcrumb should be:

        Home > Dehli > Saket > Pizza > Pizza Hut

        If the URL is www.askme.com/pizza-huts/saket-delhi/ the breadcrumb should be

        Home > Pizza Hut > Saket-Delhi

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • _nitman
          _nitman @AlanBleiweiss last edited by

          While thinking about the ideal URL structure, I did consider some of the blogs (including this one by Rand: https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls, check point #11. Attaching a screenshot as well) and websites which were doing really good with their one level static URLs.

          I actually did some keyword research on user's search pattern and google suggest data. Generally, our target search term comes before ("pizza huts" in this case) the geo location, may be people search things in a different way in India. Hence, I thought of keeping the URL structure that way.

          A little confused about this point though "URL, breadcrumb both should match the sequence.  If one has one sequence, and the other has a different sequence, that confuses search algorithms". Because, have seen many website doing tremendously well who're not following these principles.

          U2vC1Ua.png

          AlanBleiweiss 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • AlanBleiweiss
            AlanBleiweiss @_nitman last edited by

            Proximity to root is not a valid best practice, especially in this instance.

            Here's why:

            More people search based on geo-location than actual business name when looking for location based businesses.  So by putting "Pizza Hut" first, that contradicts this notion. It implies "more people look for Pizza Hut than the number of people looking for all the different businesses in this geo-location".

            Also, by using the URL you suggest, that's blatant over-optimization - attempting to stuff exact match keywords into the URL. In reality, people use a very wide range of keyword variations, so that's another conflict that harms your overall focus needs.

            All of the individual factors need to reinforce each other as much as is reasonable for human readability. So URL, breadcrumb both should match the sequence.  If one has one sequence, and the other has a different sequence, that confuses search algorithms.

            _nitman 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • _nitman
              _nitman @AlanBleiweiss last edited by

              Thank you so much once again Sir Alan.

              Well, I'm just thinking aloud here. How about putting my primary keyword in the first level instead of having this well structured URL syntax? For instance:

              • www.askme.com/pizza-huts-in-saket-delhi instead of www.askme.com/dehli/saket/pizza/pizza-hut/

              Here,

              • The complete primary keyword (or target search string) is closer to the domain. "Closer your keywords to the domain, better it is", I heard this somewhere. Is it still true and adds any additional value?
              • We don't have deep URL directory structure and our primary keyword is together too. In the well structure URL (the one you suggested), the target keyword is broken into multiple pieces & the URL directories.
              • But, I'm not exposing the hierarchy/navigation-flow via URL. I hope that's okay as far as I'm handling it cleanly from the breadcrumbs and rich snippets. What's your take on this?

              I know there are chances of URL conflicts. For instance, if we have an area "foo" in the city "bar" vs a city "foo bar". I'll end up having the same URL for both the cases i.e /<search-query>-in-foo-bar. There are many such edge cases, I'm on it.</search-query>

              AlanBleiweiss 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • AlanBleiweiss
                AlanBleiweiss @seowoody last edited by

                Local pack exists, yet is far from complete or consistently helpful.  Business directories thrive even in an age of local packs.  It's all about finding the best way to provide value, and the internet is large enough that many players can play in the game.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • seowoody
                  seowoody last edited by

                  Sorry for my ignorance here but does googl.in not show the local pack in its serps, with reviews and ratings?

                  if so, isn't the business model flawed, assuming you're going to be charging companies to be listed in your directory when they can get listed as a local business in Google right now for free?

                  perhaps I've overlooked something...

                  AlanBleiweiss 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • AlanBleiweiss
                    AlanBleiweiss last edited by

                    Business listing directory environments have a big challenge when it comes to URL structure / information architecture and content organization because:

                    1. Many businesses are searched for based on geo-location
                    2. Many of those require hyper-local referencing while many others can be "in the general vacinity"
                    3. Many other businesses are not as relevant to geo-location

                    So what is a site to do?

                    The best path is to recognize that as mobile becomes more and more critical to searcher needs, hyper-local optimization becomes more critical.  It becomes the most important focus for SEO.

                    As a result, URL structure needs to reflect hyper-local first and foremost. So:

                    • www.askme.com/delhi/
                    • www.askme.com/delhi/saket/
                    • www.askme.com/delhi/saket/pizza/
                    • www.askme.com/dehli/saket/pizza/pizza-hut/

                    This way, if someone searches for "Pizza Hut Dehli", all of the Dehli Pizza Huts will show up, regardless of neighborhood, while anyone searching for "Pizza Hut Saket" will get more micro-locally relevant results.

                    And for those businesses that serve a wider geo-area, even though they too will be assigned a hyper-local final destination page, they will still be related to their broader geo-area as well.  So someone searching "plumbers in Dehli" will get the right results and then they can choose any of the plumbers in Dehli regardless of what neighborhood they are in.

                    Note how I removed /search/ from the URL structure as well. It's an irrelevant level.

                    _nitman 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • seoaustin

                      Old URL that has been 301'd for months appearing in SERPs

                      We created a more keyword friendly url with dashes instead of underscores in December.  That new URL is in Google's Index and has a few links to it naturally.  The previous version of the URL (with underscores) continues to rear it's ugly head in the SERPs, though when you click on it you are 301'd to the new url.  The 301 is implemented correctly and checked out on sites such as http://www.redirect-checker.org/index.php. Has anyone else experienced such a thing? I understand that Google can use it's discretion on pages, title tags, canonicals, etc.... But I've never witnessed them continue to show an old url that has been 301'd to a new for months after discovery or randomly.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoaustin
                      0
                    • McTaggart

                      Why do people put xml sitemaps in subfolders? Why not just the root? What's the best solution?

                      Just read this: "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location Yet surely it's better to put the sitemaps at the root so you have:
                      (a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml 
                      http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml
                      http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml 
                      and so on... OR this kind of approach - 
                      (b) http://example/com/sitemap.xml
                      http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml and 
                      http://example.com/sitemap/spongecakes.xml I would tend towards (a) rather than (b) - which is the best option? Also, can I keep the structure the same for sitemaps that are subcategories of other sitemaps - for example - for a subcategory of http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml I might create http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml - or should I add a sub folder to turn it into http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes/cherryicing.xml Look forward to reading your comments - Luke

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
                      0
                    • Ria_

                      Partial Match or RegEx in Search Console's URL Parameters Tool?

                      So I currently have approximately 1000 of these URLs indexed, when I only want roughly 100 of them. Let's say the URL is www.example.com/page.php?par1=ABC123=&par2=DEF456=&par3=GHI789= All the indexed URLs follow that same kinda format, but I only want to index the URLs that have a par1 of ABC (but that could be ABC123 or ABC456 or whatever). Using URL Parameters tool in Search Console, I can ask Googlebot to only crawl URLs with a specific value. But is there any way to get a partial match, using regex maybe? Am I wasting my time with Search Console, and should I just disallow any page.php without par1=ABC in robots.txt?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ria_
                      0
                    • Atlanta-SMO

                      Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's

                      An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO
                      0
                    • NerdsOnCall

                      What's the deal with significantLinks?

                      http://schema.org/significantLink Schema.org has a definition for "non-navigation links that are clicked on the most." Presumably this means something like the big green buttons on Moz's homepage. But does anyone know how they affect anything? In http://moz.com/blog/schemaorg-a-new-approach-to-structured-data-for-seo#comment-142936, Jeremy Nelson says " It's quite possible that significant links will pass anchor text as well if a previous link to the page was set in navigation, effictively making obselete the first-link-counts rule, and I am interested in putting that to test." This is a pretty obscure comment but it's one of the only results I could find on the subject. Is this BS? I can't even make out what all of it is saying. So what's the deal with significantLinks and how can we use them to SEO?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NerdsOnCall
                      0
                    • brad-causes

                      Do search engines crawl links on 404 pages?

                      I'm currently in the process of redesigning my site's 404 page. I know there's all sorts of best practices from UX standpoint but what about search engines? Since these pages are roadblocks in the crawl process, I was wondering if there's a way to help the search engine continue its crawl. Does putting links to "recent posts" or something along those lines allow the bot to continue on its way or does the crawl stop at that point because the 404 HTTP status code is thrown in the header response?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brad-causes
                      0
                    • WebRiverGroup

                      What is the best way to handle special characters in URLs

                      What is the best way to handle special characters? We have some URL's that use special characters and when a sitemap is generate using Xenu it changes the characters to something different. Do we need to have physically change the URL back to display the correct character? Example: URL:  http://petstreetmall.com/Feeding-&-Watering/361.html Sitmap Link:  http://www.petstreetmall.com/Feeding-%26-Watering/361.html

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebRiverGroup
                      0
                    • boxcarpress

                      Url structure for multiple search filters applied to products

                      We have a product catalog with several hundred similar products. Our list of products allows you apply filters to hone your search, so that in fact there are over 150,000 different individual searches you could come up with on this page. Some of these searches are relevant to our SEO strategy, but most are not. Right now (for the most part) we save the state of each search with the fragment of the URL, or in other words in a way that isn't indexed by the search engines. The URL (without hashes) ranks very well in Google for our one main keyword. At the moment, Google doesn't recognize the variety of content possible on this page. An example is: http://www.example.com/main-keyword.html#style=vintage&color=blue&season=spring We're moving towards a more indexable URL structure and one that could potentially save the state of all 150,000 searches in a way that Google could read. An example would be: http://www.example.com/main-keyword/vintage/blue/spring/ I worry, though, that giving so many options in our URL will confuse Google and make a lot of duplicate content. After all, we only have a few hundred products and inevitably many of the searches will look pretty similar. Also, I worry about losing ground on the main http://www.example.com/main-keyword.html page, when it's ranking so well at the moment. So I guess the questions are: Is there such a think as having URLs be too specific? Should we noindex or set rel=canonical on the pages whose keywords are nested too deep? Will our main keyword's page suffer when it has to share all the inbound links with these other, more specific searches?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | boxcarpress
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.