URL paths and keywords
-
I'm recommending some on-page optimization for a home builder building in several new home communities. The site has been through some changes in the past few months and we're almost starting over.
The current URL structure is
http://homebuilder.com/oakwood/features
where
homebuilder = builder name
Oakwood Estates= name of community
features = one of several sub-paths including site plan, elevations, floor plans, etc.
The most attainable keyword phrases include the word 'home' and 'townname'
I want to change the URL path to:
http://homebuilder.com/oakwood-estates-townname-homes/features
Is there any problem with doing this? It just seems to make a lot of sense. Any input would be appreciated.
-
I had a feeling that there was something inherently wrong with my approach which is why I asked the question. Good to know that there's folks willing to help out - thanks for the clarification(s). And the separate town pages is a good solution. Thanks.
-
Perhaps this video would be more helpful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRzMhlFZz9I
The URL is a ranking factor, but it should not be focused to this level of detail. It is one of over 200 ranking factors, most of the weight goes to the domain name and the keywords deeper in the URL have very very very little effect on ranking. Where it matters more is for users to be able to read the URL prior to clicking through. If you make your URL too long, then it will get cut off and the most important terms at the end wont be viewed.
If you feel "Oakwood estates" is not helpful and you also feel the town name is very important, then you could make your URLs homebuilder.com/town/floor-plans.
The effect of keywords in your URLs comes more into play when sites link to you using the URL. If sites do not link to you, it's not really going to matter. If sites do link to you but use anchor text, it wont matter either. Even if sites link to you using a keyword stuffed URL, there will be so many terms in it the weight given to each term will be so low it wont make any meaningful difference.
-
I would start with the major cities, surrounding the area, and create zip coded directories.
I found the more directories, I create and submit, and coinciding names & keeping then relative to what the search reports are.
This is after the a close look at your GA Reports.I hope it helps.
-
This is a really good answer by Ryan, covers both Usability and SEO.
I'd suggest going with this recommendation, sticking with the shorter style URL structure to benefit user experience and to focus on the main primary keywords for SEO.
It would also make it easy to clearly target other towns/cities at a high level, e.g. http://homebuilder.com/townname/
-
Thanks. That makes sense.
Consider this though. I should have been clearer.
The keyword phrase that I would be targeting in almost every case would be 'townname homes for sale' and/or 'townname homes'.
'Oakwood Estates' and the other community names don't really generate much traffic, and while I need them for the small amount of traffic they produce, I'm more interested in penetrating the broader area names.
Your take?
-
There is not any problem with taking that approach in and of itself. I would suggest there is not any need nor a substantial benefit to sticking those extra keywords in the URL. If it was my site, I would think "oakwood" is probably enough instead of "oakwood-estates", and the town name should not be needed in the URL at all. I would think Oakwood is associated with only one town.
The URL would then be http://homebuilder.com/oakwood/floor-plans for example.
As a general rule for most of SEO, the more terms you add the more you dilute your other keywords. People have a tendency to want to stuff in extra terms to gain relevancy. The process is not user friendly nor does it help with SEO.
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
-
After you remove a 301 redirect that Google has processed, will the new URL retain any of the link equity from the old URL?
Lets say you 301 redirect URL A to URL B, and URL A has some backlinks from other sites. Say you left the 301 redirect in place for a year, and Google had already replaced the old URL with the new URL in the SERPs, would the new URL (B) retain some of the link equity from URL A after the 301 redirect was removed, or does the redirect have to remain in place forever?
Technical SEO | | johnwalkersmith0 -
Submitted URL has crawl issue - Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404 - but all looks fine
Google Search Console is showing some pages up as "Submitted URL has crawl issue" but they look fine to me. I have set them as fixed but after a month they were finally re-crawled and google states the issue persists. Examples are: https://www.rscpp.co.uk/counselling/175809/psychology-alcester-lanes-end.html
Technical SEO | | TommyNewmanCEO
https://www.rscpp.co.uk/browse/location-index/889/index-of-therapy-in-hanger-lane.html
https://www.rscpp.co.uk/counselling/274646/psychology-waltham-forest-sexual-problems.html There's also some "Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404": https://www.rscpp.co.uk/counselling/112585/counselling-moseley-depression.html I also have more which are "pending", but again I couldn't see a problem with them in the first place. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. Any advice? Thanks in advance.0 -
URL is invalid: Why?
Hello everyone, I am currently listing my company on business directories. For some websites however when I add my website URL, it comes up as URL is invalid. What could be the reason for this? I have tried different variations like www., http:// and https://. Kind Regards,
Technical SEO | | SMCCoachHire
Aqib0 -
Duplicate blog URLs in Magenton
On one my sites Moz is picking up 4483 duplicate content pages. The majority of these are from our blog and video sections on our site. We're using a URL shortener and it appears that some of the pages are the full version of the URL then the shortened version. However if you go to the full version you get redirected to the shorter one. So I would assume that the Moz crawler should get the same redirect? We're also getting pagination being shown as duplicate pages, which I would half expect, but the URLs Magento is creating are truly bizarre: e.g http://www.xxx.com/uk/blog/cat/view/identifier/news/page/news/index.php/alarms-doorbells/?p=2 Alarms and doorbells is one of our product categories, which is displayed in the LHN on the blog page but has nothing to do with the blog itself. On another site on the same Magento instance, with the same content (they're for two different regions) we're show as having 248 duplicate pages, again in the video and news section, but this is a completely different scale of issue. Has anyone else encountered issues like these? I'm probably going to put a noindex in place on these two sections until we can get a solution in place as we're completely unranked in google on this site. Thanks
Technical SEO | | ahyde0 -
Landing Page URL Structure
We are finally setting up landing pages to support our PPC campaigns. There has been some debate internally about the URL structure. Originally we were planning on URL's like: domain.com /california /florida /ny I would prefer to have the URL's for each state inside a "state" folder like: domain.com /state /california /florida /ny I like having the folders and pages for each state under a parent folder to keep the root folder as clean as possible. Having a folder or file for each state in the root will be very messy. Before you scream URL rewriting :-). Our current site is still running under Classic ASP which doesn't support URL rewriting. We have tried to use HeliconTech's ISAPI rewrite module for IIS but had to remove it because of too many configuration issues. Next year when our coding to MVC is complete we will use URL rewriting. So the question for now: Is there any advantage or disadvantage to one URL structure over the other?
Technical SEO | | briankb0 -
URL Structure: When to insert keywords?
I read the SEOmoz beginers guide and it said that it's beneficial to place keywords in the URL as long as you don't overdo it. However, this seems awkward for common pages, such as "Home", "About", "Contact" etc.... I've currently targeted a specific keyword for each page on my site, as follows: Home: "Green Screen" Work: "Greenscreen" About: "Event Photography" Pricing: "Green Screen Photography" Should I rename the URLs as: Home: ...com/green-screen-home.html Work: ...com/greenscreen-work.html About:...com/about-event-photography.html Pricing:...com/green-screen-photography-pricing.html
Technical SEO | | pharcydeabc0 -
Is there actual risk to having multiple URLs that frame in main url? Or is it just bad form and waste of money?
Client has many urls that just frame in the main site. It seems like a total waste of money, but if they are frames, is there an actual risk?
Technical SEO | | gravityseo0 -
Including spatial location in URL structure. Does subfolder number and keyword order actually matter?
The SEOMoz On-Page report for my site brings up one warning (among others) that I find interesting: Minimal Subfolders in the URL My site deals with trails and courses for both races and general running. The structure for a trail is, for example: /trails/Canada/British-Columbia/Greater-Vancouver-Regional-District/Baden--Powell-Trail/trail/2 The structure for courses is: /course/28 In both cases, the id at the end is used for a database lookup. I'm considering an URL structure that would be: /trail/Baden-Powell-Trail/ca-bc-vancouver This would use the country code (CA) and sub-country code (BC) along with the short name for the region. This could be good because: it puts the main keyword first the URL is much shorter there are only 3 levels in the URL structure However, there is evidence, from Google's Matt Cutts, that the keyword order and URL structure don't matter in that way: See this post: http://www.seomoz.org/q/all-page-files-in-root-or-to-use-directories If Matt Cutts says they aren't so important then why are they listed in the SEOMoz On-Page Report? I'd prefer to use /trail/ca-bc-vancouver/Baden-Powell-Trail. I'll probably do a similar thing for courses. Is this a good idea? Thoughts? Many thanks, in advance, for your help. Cheers, Edward watch?v=l_A1iRY6XTM watch?v=gRzMhlFZz9I
Technical SEO | | esarge0