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.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • 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. On-Page Optimization
    4. URL best practices, use folders or not ?

    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.

    URL best practices, use folders or not ?

    On-Page Optimization
    4
    10
    2077
    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.
    • 77Agency
      77Agency last edited by

      Hi

      I have a question about URLs. Client have all URL written after domain and have only one / slash in all URLs. Is this best practice or i need to use categories,folders?

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Dr-Pete
        Dr-Pete Staff @77Agency last edited by

        It's a trade-off, for both SEO and users, and I don't think there's one answer that fits every situation. The category level can add information, but it also makes URLs longer, which can be bad for both bots and people. If you have short, descriptive categories that aren't repeated in the product/page names, and those categories mimic your site structure, then I think it can be positive.

        My argument was mostly against people adding categories just for SEO benefit (it's probably minimal, at best) or repeating every category, sub-category, etc. to the point of absurdity, causing keyword cannibalization and massive URLs. For example:

        www.bobscamerashop.com/cameras/digital-cameras/canon-cameras/eos-cameras/camera-canon-eos-rebel-t3

        Of course, that's also keyword stuffed, but I'm exaggerating to prove a point. You can go too far in either direction.

        In general, though, I don't think categories in the URL are necessarily bad. In some cases, as Woj said, they could be a positive for users and possible even SEO.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • wojkwasi
          wojkwasi @77Agency last edited by

          Think about it from the user's point of view. What would work best for them? Maybe even get some feedback from some site users if possible

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • wojkwasi
            wojkwasi @77Agency last edited by

            Will the site categories/products grow? If so, then the slash could be used to organise the structure & prepare for the future

            In the example, you presented:

            1. www.example.com/accounts-titanium
            2. www.example.com**/**accounts/titanium

            These are the same length & make no real difference

            When we compare these 2, however:

            1. www.example.com/open-demo-account
            2. www.example.com/accounts/open-demo-account

            You can see that #1 is shorter, doesn't repeat keyword (even though they are plural) & would be more likely clicked in the SERPs

            Does that help some more?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 77Agency
              77Agency last edited by

              http://www.seomoz.org/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seo

              In this article point 2 is saying that the unstructured is better 😃 so i`m confused.

              wojkwasi Dr-Pete 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • 77Agency
                77Agency @77Agency last edited by

                the site is small about 60 pages and max depth level is 3

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • wojkwasi
                  wojkwasi @77Agency last edited by

                  I'd use folders or categories if the amount of products/items is large and/or going to expand

                  If it's a small amount & finite then make the URLs as short as possible 🙂

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • lavellester
                    lavellester @77Agency last edited by

                    Information architecture is important from a usability and search engine prospective.

                    I'd say go for the categories divided by the /

                    www.example.com**/**accounts/titanium
                    www.example.com/accounts/open-demo-account

                    This makes more sense and lends itself to scalability etc.

                    hope this helps.

                    there are some really good articles on information architecture on the seomoz and the web

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 77Agency
                      77Agency @lavellester last edited by

                      URL is without any category or folder

                      www.example.com/credits

                      www.example.com/accounts-titanium

                      www.example.com/accounts-demo

                      www.example.com/open-demo-account

                      is this right or i need to use:

                      www.example.com**/**accounts/titanium

                      www.example.com/accounts/open-demo-account

                      lavellester wojkwasi 77Agency 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • lavellester
                        lavellester last edited by

                        not quite sure what you mean exactly - can you expand with and example?

                        Thanks

                        77Agency 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • 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

                        • HashtagHustler

                          Url shows up in "Inurl' but not when using time parameters

                          Hey everybody, I have been testing the Inurl: feature of Google to try and gauge how long ago Google indexed our page. SO, this brings my question. If we run inurl:https://mysite.com all of our domains show up. If we run inurl:https://mysite.com/specialpage the domain shows up as being indexed If I use the "&as_qdr=y15" string to the URL, https://mysite.com/specialpage does not show up. Does anybody have any experience with this? Also on the same note when I look at how many pages Google has indexed it is about half of the pages we see on our backend/sitemap. Any thoughts would be appreciated. TY!

                          On-Page Optimization | | HashtagHustler
                          1
                        • JesusD

                          Difference in using dividers in TITLE TAG

                          Hi everyone, i know that dividers in title or even title tag doesnt have much of an impact on better rankings. I had great rankings for many keywords, not using dividers or using only one divider. However for better reading comprehension and usability, and also aesthetics i started to use the pipe as my main divider and other secondary dividers. I saw many pages drop in rankings vs other less competent and with less content pages. My format was as follows: Product Brand | Product description - Additional info or local info ie.  Fiber Glass MBI | Insulation Batts for Home and Commercial use -  Acoustic and Thermal Insulation I changed the format for a handful of pages, and saw immediate results on rankings and traffic on those pages. Product Brand with Product Description - Additional Info ie. Fiber Glass MBI Insulation Batts for Commercial use - Acoustic and Thermal Insulation. Does it sound like something i should implement page wide. I personally like the aesthetics of the pipe as it gives a cleaner look, but the better rankings on the changed pages with using only one divider makes me think.  Does it sound familiar, or its just a coincidence, Regards,

                          On-Page Optimization | | JesusD
                          0
                        • Jaybeamer

                          Two URL's for the same page

                          Hi, on our site we have two separate URL's for a page that has the same content. So, for example - 'www.domain.co.uk/stuff' and 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' both have the same content on the page. We currently rank high in search for 'www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff' for our targeted keyword, but there are numerous links on the site to www.domain.co.uk/stuff and also potentially inbound links to this page. Ideally we want just the www.domain.co.uk/things/stuff URL to be present on the site, what would be the best course of action to take? Would a simple Canonical tag from the '/stuff' URL which points to the '/things/stuff' page be wise? If we were to scrap the '/stuff' URL totally and redirect it to the 'things/stuff' URL and change all our on site links, would this be beneficial and not harm our current ranking for '/things/stuff'? We only want 1 URL for this page for numerous reasons (i.e, easier to track in Analytics), but I'm a bit cautious that changing the page that doesn't rank may have an affect on the page that does rank! Thanks.

                          On-Page Optimization | | Jaybeamer
                          2
                        • stephanwb

                          Canonical URL, cornerstone page and categories

                          If I want to have a cornerstone "page", can I substitute an actual page with a category archive of posts "page" (that contains many posts containing the target key phrase)? This way, if I make blog posts about a certain topic/ key phrase (example "beach weddings") and add a canonical URL of the category archive page to the individual posts, am I right then to assume google will see the archive page as the cornerstone page (and thereby won't see the individual posts with the same key phrase as competing)?

                          On-Page Optimization | | stephanwb
                          0
                        • HiddenPeak

                          Blog on Subdomain vs. Subdirectory - Best Practices

                          Hi, I have recently been told that it no longer impacts authority or rankings if a blog is set up on a subdomain (blog.domain.com) rather than a subdirectory (/blog). However, I am reluctant to do so because I remember learning how blog subdomains did not adhere to SEO best practices. Would anyone be able to shed some light on the latest SEO best practices regarding this topic? Many thanks, Erin

                          On-Page Optimization | | HiddenPeak
                          0
                        • Webat

                          What is the best way to format an xml sitemap?

                          I am wondering if the urls should be in alphabetical order or if they should be set out in a way that reflects the sites hierarchy? Thanks.

                          On-Page Optimization | | Webat
                          0
                        • BobGW

                          301 redirect and then keywords in URL

                          Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?

                          On-Page Optimization | | BobGW
                          0
                        • Audiohype

                          Using commas in the title tag?

                          Is there a disadvantage/advantage to using commas to separate words in the title tag. Which will be more effective as a title tag: "keyword1 keyword2 - Brand" OR "keyword1, keyword2 - Brand"?

                          On-Page Optimization | | Audiohype
                          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.