Installing a site on top level domain directory VS deeper directory
-
How important it is for seo to install a site on a top level directory vs deeper directory?
example:
www.mysite.com VS www.mysite.com/catalog
many eCommerce scripts such as oscommerce and cre loaded will install by default to /catalog and that's what I've been doing for most of my customer. does it mean it will be harder for them to get good seo results?
Thanks in advance for the input...
-
Without server configuration, I'll take a stab at this. I see only one potentially significant issue: Inbound links. When someone links to the website, do you want to count on them linking www.site.com instead of www.site.com/catalog ? Shorter URLs are easier to remember and they can improve the direct type-in traffic.
For navigational purposes, your server can resolve to the site homepage when the incomplete URL is entered into the browser, but a 301 redirect doesn't carry over all of the PR.
Less significant is the superfluous term in your URL. Legend has it that shorter, simpler, more relevant keywords in your meta-data and URLs is the way to go. Will a single additional term drop you in the SERP? Highly unlikely. Most ecommerce sites have to use a similar format.
If you don't have reasons of necessity, go with the short URL. 301 redirects (URL iterations 2,3,4,etc to a single URL format) should suffice for those site that have been live for some time.
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
-
site speed
i use mid-quality pic and... but my site speed is low
On-Page Optimization | | zlbvasgabc
any suggestion?
my site is:
https://bandolini.ir/0 -
Should Ecommerce Site Give Registration Option to Customers?
Hi All, Should Ecommerce Site Give Registration Option to Customers? What are then advantages and disadvantages? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Arnold31 -
Moving Site from HTTP to HTTPS
Hi, So the news is that Google has started giving more importance to sites with HTTPS i.e. it is now a new ranking signal. It says that as of now it affects fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high quality content but it may decide to strengthen it as they would like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web. In that case, what should we do? Switching from http:// to https:// means change in urls and low traffic. How to cope with it? Do we have to implement 'n' number of redirects? Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | IM_Learner3 -
Can a country level domain perform well in international SEO if all the targeted keywords are related to that country domain?
Hi fellow Mozers, I am doing international SEO on Google US, UK, UAE and Saudi Arabia. All my targeted keywords have my country name in it, for example, export companies in France, best import companies in France and so on. Finally, my website has a country level domain i.e. www.xyz.co.fr _Hence, my questions are: _ 1. Is it good have a country level domain in this case or should I go TLDs? 2. Should my Google Plus page be a local business page or company page from SEO perspective? I have more than 10000 users who have +1 my website. _Thanks in advance. _
On-Page Optimization | | Abhi81870 -
Multiple Organization Schema on the same site
I creating a preferred supplier list on my site and wanted to use the Organization Schema for the company details. Is there a issue with having more than one org schema on the same site? or should I just use the one for my company. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | gregdicksonuk1 -
What are your top tactics for boosting your site's Author Rank?
Mike Arneson has an excellent Mozinar where he shares some helpful Author Rank tactics. What specific tactics are you doing to boost the Author Rank of your site?
On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs1 -
Site structure question
I'm currently working on a very awkward custom-WP setup, in which I can't maintain the present drop-down navigation menu without having those pages under a parent or without completely recoding everything. I have two requirements, for SEO purposes I'm looking for the following structure for each targeted landing page: www.example.com/landing-page as opposed to www.example.com/sub/landing-page Of course, having my landing pages as a child, I get the latter of the two. For navigational purposes they need to fall under a specific category in a drop-down menu. With any other theme or setup this is an easy fix, but not here. What I have now is that the landing pages are currently placed under a parent category page. But, they have custom permalinks. The permalinks are setup as follows www.example.com/landing-page But, technically the exact structure is still www.example.com/sub/landing-page which then redirects to the custom permalink. So, my question is - in an attempt to get my most important landing pages close to the root for better PR and crawlability, do I still get the same benefit with my current setup? Is this structure I have, better, worse, or indifferent? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | JayAdams320 -
External vs inline for CSS menu
Which is better for search engines: external or inline menus? And which language: CSS, Javascript, or both?
On-Page Optimization | | teatable0