What is the most optimal URL structure
-
A colleague and I are discussing the most optimal URL structure for both search engines and users. Our first disagreement comes in terms of files.
So for instance if I have a small site, www.abc.com, with a service landing page and 3 specific services, which structure is preferred?
The second issue is in terms of breaking up words in the URL. Should you use hyphens or not? Using the first example, which is preferred?
I'm also looking for articles/case studies that support either side. Thank you in advance for your help!
-
"I don't think Google is sophisticated enough to breakup a string into words without hyphens"
I wonder though... they might very well use the same algo that they use when you misspell something in the search box on google.com
Try typing in two conjoined words and it manages to separate them asking, "Did you mean..."
You brought up an interesting point.
-
Don't forget to consider how your URL structure can help with effective Google Analytics tracking. Lunametrics has a good post on designing a GA-friendly site structure at http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/09/22/designing-google-analytics-friendly-site/
-
There are quite a few factors at play here.
1. I've always preferred, as a developer, to have end-pages split up into categories and sub-categories for ease of development. However, it also let's the user know where they are within the site simply by looking at the URL.
There really is no right or wrong. You just have to do what makes sense for the site. If we're talking a micro-site here, with only a handful of pages, then you don't need to create categories and sub-categories. Just make a straight up URL, ie. /vacuum-services.html instead of doing /services/vacuums/
Remember to try and keep your preferred keywords to the foremost left of the URL to ensure some significance is placed on them. Not imperative, but if you can, I'd suggest it.
2. Always use hyphens to break up a word. Underscores are seen as a form of concatenation by search engines, whereas hyphens are seen as separators. Using neither is not recommended as it's not legible to the end-user and ultimately just forms one large word comprised of several keywords. No good.
-
I'd suggest keeping the page as close to the root domain as possible. Don't put directories in-between as you did in the following example: www.abc.com/services/service1
Also, utilize hyphens to separate the words. I don't think Google is sophisticated enough to breakup a string into words without hyphens (could be wrong).
Lastly, if you're planning on trying to get into Google News, one of the requirements is to have a 3+ digit string in your URL. So something along the lines of www.abc.com/home-remodeling-123
Hope that helps!
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
-
Keyword cannibalization or linking structure?
Hi all, Recently I got an answer from this community about "why our login page is ranking but not my homepage for primary keyword"? Possibilities are keyword cannibalization or linking structure. In our case, our homepage is not ranking for "primary keyword" but ranking for other keywords. If it is linking structure, what might be wrong? Like do we need to unlink login page from many internal links? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Link reclamation and many 301 redirect to one URL
We have many incoming links to a non existing pages of a sub-domain, which we are planning to take down or redirect to a sub-directory. But we are not ready to loose pagerank or link juice as many links of this sub-domain are referred from different external links. It's going to be double redirect obviously. What is the best thing we can go to reclaim these links without loss of link juice or PR? Can we redirect all these links to same sub-domain and redirect the same sub-domain to sub-directory? Will this double redirect works? Or Can we redirect all these links to same sub-domain and ask visitors to visit sub-directory, manual redirection? How fair to manually redirect visitors? Any other options? Thanks, Satish
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
If I optimize for a long tailed keyword, will I also catch the short keywords within it?
Say my long tailed keyword has three words in it that I also consider keywords. Will I catch the searches for those short keywords, or just the long tailed keyword phrase?
Algorithm Updates | | Scratch_MM0 -
Optimizing for Lawyer vs Attorney Words
With Hummingbird update, my client's personal injury lawyer site went from very good positions for top terms in Google to oblivion. The site had primary landing pages for parallel terms such as "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney", among other. He does work in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, so we focus on key phrases for both "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer" and "Pennsylvania dog bite lawyer" etc. I've decided to investigate siloing more deeply, but am unsure whether Google now considers attorney searches to be the same as lawyer searches, which would mean we would silo for "Pennsylvania" and "Philadelphia" not "Attorney" and "Lawyer". Any real world experience in this anyone? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | JCDenver0 -
New visual search results - what is this and how do we optimize for it?
Hi all, This morning as I am doing some keyword research for a new client, I typed in the phrase and Google returned both the listings as well as a vertical photo bar. I've never seen this before. Is this new? Is it common and I've just missed it? I presume this means we need to really have our photo alt tags 'ducks in a row' but I'm also wondering if this points to an increased importance on visual content? Image attached. Thanks, YINd14d
Algorithm Updates | | EricOliver0 -
Google webmaster tool content keywords Top URLs
GWT->Optimization->Content Keywords section... If we click on the keyword it will further shows the variants and Top URLs containing those variants. My problem is none of the important pages like product details pages, homepage or category pages are present in that Top URLs list. All the news, guides section url's are listed in the Top URLs section for most important keyword that is also present in my domain name. How to make google realize the important pages for the important keyword?
Algorithm Updates | | BipSum0 -
On-page Optimization
Hi, I have two campaigns and neither have any statistics for on-page optimization. Am I doing something wrong or how do I make these stats appear? I would like to improve my website. Thank you in advanced for any pointers or shared experience you may give me!
Algorithm Updates | | Pixeltistic0 -
SinglePlatform's Restaurant Menu Across Web Properties vs "SEO-Optimized"
Surprised I wasn't able to find an existing answer given that SinglePlatform apparently serves 500,000 SMBs with menus that appear on over 150 publisher websites. Given Panda's razor-sharp intolerance for duplicate content, am I safe to assume that any claim of SinglePlatform's menu on a local restaurant being beneficial to your SEO is now spurious? If so, what's best way to handle this as a potential SEO liability while still having one of their nicely formatted restaurant menus on your site? For reference: http://www.openforum.com/articles/using-singleplatform-to-build-a-digital-presence Update May 7, 2012 Connected directly with the folks at SinglePlatform, and the answer here is a lot simpler than my over-thinking of it. The menu usually sits within an iFrame or widget so that's that. But the ability to truthfully show an up-to-date menu for any given establishment is a legit way to address the healthy amount of local search intent that seems to be directed at exactly that. Overall a pretty slick platform, looking forward to seeing how they grow into the SMB, local & mobile in the coming months, I think the space is ripe to benefit from products/services that take advantage of these sorts of economies of scale.
Algorithm Updates | | mgalica0