Is my URL structure ideal?
-
.
-
Thanks everyone. This was very helpful. I will NOT include the state abbreviation. Ryan - I have an uppercase letter in every word. I will go ahead and format everything so that only lowercase letters are used. Thanks!
-
Simon and Yannick both offer good advice. One item I would add, it is a best practice to only use lower case letters in your URLs. If you do make a change, switch to all lower case letters as well.
I would also not ever change a URL in an attempt to stuff a keyword into it. URLs beyond the domain name are a very very low ranking factor. I would more likely want to change from your proposed URL to your current URL rather then vice-versa. In all likelihood, you can change your URL to mydomain/page=10 and it wont change your ranking.
To be clear, your current URL structure is desirable mostly because it is easy for people to read which can benefit CTR, and if someone links to your site using the URL they will include your important keywords. It may be a ranking factor but think of it as 0.001% type of thing which is not likely to ever make a difference. Your loss of link juice from the redirect is more impacting then such an incredibly minor change.
-
Hi Alexander, a good question.
I'm not sure it will benefit yourself or your visitors by adding in a State element such as FL to your URL structure. Main reason being 'semantic search', Google will know that FL means Florida and vice versa.
The actual decision probably lies with your keyword research, as in what the differences tend to be in search volumes between States and State Abbreviations for your main target keyword searches.
The shorter option without eg. FL looks neater from a user experience perspective, slightly easier to read. So long as you optimise the on-page well such as Titles, Descriptions, H1 tags etc then you'll be able to cater for both with the shorter URL.
Hope that helps, Regards, Simon
-
Hi there Alexander
Personally i would look at the following seeing that you want to have areas in your service at urls'.
mydomain.com/Florida/surety-bonds/Contractor-License-Bond/
That way you can build relevance over the area for other services too such as below if you know what i mean
-
The only thing you might want to change in your site/url structure is drill down to city level. If applicable? Don't live in the US so...
-
My title structure is properly in place. I just want to make sure there's nothing additional I can do since we are addressing URL Keywords today.
-
I'd put more effort in constructing the perfect title tag than the perfect url's. What you are talking about isn't really structure, it is more like: what to put in the url's.
Simply use the first url you mentioned. And in the title mention Florida Contractor license bond.
So the FL will not make any difference. Just make sure you mention it in your title and on-page of course, because that will help!
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, Breadcrumb/Site Hierarchy Display, User (and Bot) Expectations
TL;DR: Do parts of URLs that are used throughout the web quite consistently have any influence on robots (or users)? Are there any studies? What would you use for pages that are something between a tag-page and a wiki-like article? Long version: On a site with a lot of content, I decided to go for tags to present articles on that topic together. My first thought was to simply list those under the URL /tag/{Tag_Name}. Short. Simple. Grabs the core meaning - on this page you'll find stuff about the tag. But: those tag-pages will be more than just lists of the tagged pages (let's say they are articles on various topics and products with certain attributes and the same tag can apply to a product and an article). The tag pages themselves will often talk a lot about the use of said tag - extensively, without blabbering. It is aimed at being a landing page and hub for the tag/keyword. Having this in mind, I pondered using /wiki/. It does fit in some respects, but it really is not a wiki. /info/, /lexicon/, /knowledge/ and other ideas came to mind but the more I thought the weirder I did find most ideas. What I am now wondering: Do these parts of URLs (/tag/, or /product/, or /wiki/) that are not really keywords in most cases have any influence on search engines? They are used quite consistently across the web and therefore could be used as signals. I suspect, though, that they might have more influence on shaping user expectation. (If I see /wiki/ in an URL or site hierarchy display (breadcrumb), I expect ... well, a wiki-style page; if I see /tag/ I expect a collection of stuff with that tag.) What would you chose if it is not quite a tag, nor quite a wiki but something in-between? Or do you think it does not matter at all? (Breadcrumbs will be used and google has used them for display in just about all SERPs.) Are there perchance any studies concerning these parts of URLS? Regards Nico
On-Page Optimization | | netzkern_AG0 -
How defined does the anchor text need to be for a domain url?
Ok, I'm looking to clean up my domain with irrelevant Anchor text linking to specific URL's. Whether, it's my root domain or a particular product URL. I'm finding a wide variety of terms (anchor text) pointing to my homepage, category and finally my product pages. Example, the Anchor text "Paragon Print Systems" is pointing to my homepage "barcodefactory.com" does this hurt my homepage enough to either have the link/anchor text removed from linking to my homepage? thanks much!, Warren
On-Page Optimization | | Warren.W0 -
WordPress image urls - need a WP maven
We were having a conversation re urls that are indexed for images that are stored in various media plugins in WP. My question for anyone who is an uberWP person is: What is your opinion re best media storage plugins and how these URLs affect pages on a site for ranking, etc. I realize this is broad, but it is driven out of my concern that I cannot touch everything. When I see a url like this: http://www.drumbeatmarketing.net/wp-content/themes/drumbeat2/img/DB-LOGO-White.png I know there is no way with all the sites and clients we handle that I can get it perfect but this just bugs me for some reason. Should I just chill since it (seemingly) affects so little....?
On-Page Optimization | | RobertFisher1 -
Opencart category urls
Hi, I have a problem with the category urls in Opencart. I have duplicate page content because of this: www.mydomain.com/category and www.mydomain.com/category?page=1 are with same content. There is also a very new problem, there are new urls - autogenerated like this. www.mydomain.com/category/category?page1 These three urls are with same content and title. I tried with 301 redirect like this: RewriteRule ^category/category?page1$ www.mydomain.com/category [L,R=301] but it doesnt work. Pls help me.
On-Page Optimization | | ankali0 -
Breadcrumbs structure
Adding breadcrumbs to create a hierarchy on what is otherwise a flat site. Got the following pages which are, our main pages that rank - Metal gates Metal driveway gates Metal garden gates Metal side access gates The Metal gates pages link off to the other pages mentioned but also contain a lot of other info The driveway gates, garden gates and side access gate page all contain our range of gates, the three pages mentioned then have links off to their individual gates contained within each section Breadcrumb wise, should I aim for Home - Metal gates - Driveway gates - individual driveway gate
On-Page Optimization | | Jon-C
Home - Metal gates - Side access gates- individual side access gate
Home - Metal gates - Garden gates- individual garden gate Is that the best way to go or if I want the driveway gate page (etc) to continueto rank should I go like this Home - Metal driveway gates Home - Metal side access gates etc0 -
Is it possible to have the crawler exclude urls with specific arguments?
Is it possible to exclude specific urls in the crawl that contain certain arguments - like you can do in google webmaster tools?
On-Page Optimization | | djangojunkie0 -
How should I structure my product URLs?
How should I structure my product URLs for the best SEO results? Lets say my product is "American Apparel 2001". Would it be better to run the URL together or use a "-" between each word. Here are two ideas I had, but feel free to suggest others. realthread.com/products/americanapparel2001 or realthread.com/products/american-apparel-2001 Thanks for the help! Dru
On-Page Optimization | | drudalton0 -
Small Site Title Tag / Structure Question
Bit embarrassed to ask this question, but will ask it anyway! I have done some quite reasonable basic SEO for clients in the south of Spain with small sites and had reasonable success. My wife and I came to the Pyrenees in the south of France to take over and run bed and breakfast in a lovely old farm and some self-catering accommodation in one of the pastures (with my continuing to do a bit of work for clients too). We are running and developing the place for friends who are away 3-4 years. They had an abysmal site, so we designed one to together: http:www.loubetaspyrenees.com/ (I have given the French version because it's what I am most concerned with - there is an English version in case I can tempt you to a holiday here!) It's been very well received by users, so that's great. We have the place on about 12 agencies amd almost all link to our site, so it serves as a good showcase. Here's my issue (for the French site): It went online 11th Feb and is already doing well for more "long tail" searches, and for more local and specific searches, but is proving slow on our prime search terms. The prime market is French, and they key terms are "Gîtes" for the self-catering accommodation, and "Chambres d'Hôtes" for the Bed and Breakfast. Our key Geographical term for the French market is "Hautes Pyrenees" - it's a departmental area. In Google.fr We are around result 100 out of 600k results for "Chambres d'hôtes hautes pyrénées" and aren't in the first 200 for "Gîtes Hautes Pyrénées". This is a competitive market and we are competing with optimised and long-established agencies but still hope to do better. I know I am losing from poorly constructed title tags cannibablising the results, but cannot see how to solve this: Home Page Title tag: "Gîtes et Chambres d'Hôtes dans les Hautes Pyrénées | les Baronnies" I have two main pages on the Gîtes: Gîte for 2-3 people Title tag "Gîte dans les Hautes Pyrénées pour 2-3 personnes en les Baronnies"
On-Page Optimization | | PeterMurray
Gîte for 3-9 people Title tag "Location Gîte dans les Baronnies Pyrénées pour groupe 3-9 personnes" ("Location" means rental) Google understood the above and put us no 1 out of over 1miillion results for a search for a gite for 9 people in the south west of France ("gite sud ouest 9 personne") And 2 pages for the Bed and Breakfast: B&B in the farm building: "Chambres d'Hôtes dans les Hautes Pyrénées dans une ferme restaurée"
B&B in gite apartments with sitting rooms: "Chambres d'Hôtes dans les Hautes Pyrénées avec salon et terrasse" I am not sure how to handle the titles for the Home Page and for the 4 subpages - sounds silly, but have you any advice on how I might handle these titles better? I thought of using more general terms on the Home Page ("Holiday accommodation in the ..."), but on such a small site (18 pages in each language version) I feel that would be unwise. It seems I must try to find some way of differentiating the titles on the other 4 pages so that i am not cannibalising but where there are so few alternatives I am not sure how! Oh dear, sorry this was so long!0