URL SEO

[Fuad_YK]

Hi All

I am completely new to SEO and I have a question about URL's which I would like advise on.

We are about to launch an immigration consultancy website which caters for several countries.

For the example below we are targeting the keyword "UK Visit Visa", which URL would be better from an SEO prospective?

1.  www.example.com/uk/visit-visa
2.  www.example.com/uk/uk-visit-visa

Thanks,

Fuad

[SimonCullum]

Hi Fuad

You're welcome, am glad to have been able to help.

All the best for your website and business,

Kind regards

Simon

[Fuad_YK]

Thanks to everyone that took the time to answer my question really appreciate your contributions.

Best wishes,

Fuad

[Fuad_YK]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your comprehensive answer really, really helpful. We are planning to use sub-folders for different countries but we will now combine this with your suggestion of putting really important pages on the root.

I have already read 'The Beginner's Guide to SEO and it was fantastic.

I am sure I will be bothering you with more SEO no brainers in the near future.

Kind regards,

Fuad

[AlanMosley]

John and Casey have given good advice,
if you are trying to rank in different countries on the same website.

You should read this page, New markup for multilingual content

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html

[SimonCullum]

Hi Fuad

A good question.

The answer kind of depends upon your intended structure for your website going forwards.  It's usually advisable to keep pages at as high a level as possible, as in having a fairly flat hierarchy.

If you are to have a sub-folder for each country, then from the above, my answer would be:

www.example.com/uk/visit-visa

because you won't need 'uk' to be there twice in the URL.

If these were deemed to be really important pages for your visitors, then you could even consider:

www.example.com/uk-visit-visa

so that these pages are at the highest possible level.  Though this depends on how you are structuring the rest of your website, could be that it's best for the User Experience & Navigation that all UK pages fall within a UK sub-folder.

Also consider whether or not you need the www. as that is a subdomain, could go for  **example.com/uk/visit-visa **

As you are new to SEO, check out 'The Beginner's Guide to SEO' here on SEOmoz.  Chapter 4 has some coverage of URL Structures.

I hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[JohnParker2792]

You might want to be careful. Duplicate content issues will arise if the same content is on the same page for different countries.

I agree with Casey www.example.com/uk/visit-visa will be just fine.

[CaseyKluver]

Hi Faud,

There is no reason to stuff uk in your URL twice, search engine will see that /uk/ just fine. As this is just a small part of the algorithm anyways either way is just fine for SEO, so use the one whats better for the user.

www.example.com/uk/visit-visa