Long URLs
-
Many URLs of my site are long due to long navigation paths. Here is an example: http://tinyurl.com/6qc4syb. My question is, if I shorten the urls (which I probably should do), does it matter that they no longer follow the navigation path?
-
Glad to help. I wouldn't go redesigning the entire site just for this, but for future sites I'd consider making the Education Center section have a /education/ folder, and other URL structure changes that embrace brevity whenever possible. SEOmoz Q&A for example, is http://www.seomoz.org/q/ and still delivers a good user experience (so would /q-a/ or /qa/ )
-
Thanks, Kane. That's what I thought but I wanted to get some other viewpoints.
-
Shouldn't be an issue - in the example you gave, removing /estate-planning from the middle would still make sense because it's under the /education-center/ subfolder. I think this works both for users and for search engines - after the 1st or 2nd subfolder level I personally stop the hierarchy in the URL in most of my sites. You have breadcrumbs in place, which is going to be much more beneficial for users than having full URLs in my opinion.
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
-
How Long For Percolation?
How long does it currently take a page to percolate up as far as it is likely to in SERPs? We posted and had Google index a blog post a few weeks back that isn't yet on the radar. I'm surprised at that given the competition on that keyword and the fact that Moz gives us an A for on-page optimization. Our site has another page ranking at 23 for the keyword, but it isn't nearly as optimized for it as the new one. Thanks for your help.
On-Page Optimization | | Ntara-Integrated-Marketing0 -
How do you handle URLs with slashes?
I asked this question before, but with a different scenario. I upgraded my plan to a more advanced cart and all of my URLs changed about 1.5 years ago. I knew nothing about redirects and such, so none of that was done. Basically, let's say my site was: http://www.abc.com, but when people actually visit my site, they are directed to https://www.abc.com/. I have asked my host about redirecting and she that it is not possible. In the past, the link shared has been just www.abc.com . Will this hurt my ranking? My second question is ...let's say I have a link http://www.abc.com/blog , but now, the link is http://www.abc.com/blog/ . Will I be affected, since all my old links omit the slash?
On-Page Optimization | | tiffany11030 -
Modify URL, how to re-index
hello, I have just modified URL, do I need to re-submit sitemap or something else to search engines?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Numbers in URL's - Search friendly or not?
Hi Mozzers, I have a client who has just launched a new website and we are having difficulties in making the URL's search friendly. I wont get into the technical aspects, but I'll explain the potential solutions the developers have given me. current: www.site.com/en/product/browse-by-product/37/22 Where 'en' stands for the English version of the website, 37 is the product category for example 'hard drives', and 22 is the product name or example 'seagate' Option to fix; www.site.com/en/p/product/hard-drives-37/seagate-22 This optional fix reduces the word product down to p, reduces 'browse by product' to 'product' and inserts the category and product names. Note the category identifier '37' has to be included in the URL, and the product identifier '22' also has to be in the URL. Obviously this is not great, but it is required at the moment. Best case scenario would be to have the URL like this... www.site.com/en/hard-drives/seagate So my question is, how far off the best case scenario is the option to fix? Scale of 1 to 10 would be good?
On-Page Optimization | | JoeyDorrington0 -
Is having the word catalog in an ecommerce site url detrimental to seo.
IS: www.example.com/catalog/category%/product% better than www.example.com/category%/product% category and product are dynamic values that change with the diff. categ. and products displayed while catalog is constant.
On-Page Optimization | | no6thgear0 -
How long should anchor text be? Best practice for anchor text length?
site: http://www.cerritosnissan.com/index.htm On the bottom of this homepage there is an seo content area, basically right under where it says "orange county nissan" welcomes you. The internal links in this area are very long and I'm wondering why they would do this - is there any benefit to making anchor text longer? The longer the anchor text, the less each part of that anchor text passes link juice. For example, for a page about their reviews, the anchor text of the link is "See what Cerritos Nissan customers have to say about their experience at this great Orange County Nissan Dealership.". If I would have done this the anchor text would be "Cerritos Nissan Reviews" or just plain "reviews" as the anchor text. Why would they be using such long keywords as anchor text?
On-Page Optimization | | qlkasdjfw
0 -
How do you see a list of URLs with duplicate page titles?
When looking at the Duplicate Page Title report, the Other URLs column has various numbers that presumably indicate the number of pages that share the same title. When I click on one of these numbers, say a URL that shows 4 in that column, the next page reports "No sample duplicate URLs to report". Why isn't it showing me the other 3 URLs with the same page title?
On-Page Optimization | | jkenyon0 -
Disadvantages & Advantages for this e-commerce URL Structure
Hi all, Just a simple question. What's the disadvantages/advantages to using this URL structure for an ecommerce site: **Category structure: **/category **Subcategory structure: **/subcategory **Product structure: **/product Compared to the standard: /category/subcategory/product Thanks, Nick
On-Page Optimization | | NickPateman810