Keep our category navigation in tree structure but move our URLs to a more flat structure. Good plan?
-
In our Magento store, products are arranged into categories, subcategories and so on. We typically have 3 or 4 layers of category depth.
This makes it nice and easy for customers to find stuff, but it means that the end categories have massive long urls.
I'd like to keep our category tree structure in place from a navigation point of view, but I feel the url structure is pushing some important stuff to the back of the shop as it were. We have something like 200 categories in total.
So, assuming every individual category has an a unique name, I'd like to rewrite the urls so that:
ourshop.com/car-parts/
stays as
ourshop.com/car-parts/ourshop.com/car-parts/suspension/
becomes
ourshop.com/suspension/ourshop.com/car-parts/suspension/springs
becomes
ourshop.com/springs/ourshop.com/car-parts/suspension/springs/thismake-lowering-springs
becomes
ourshop.com/thismake-lowering-springs/and so on....
I'll need some custom magento URL rewrite work done, but that's another story. The real question is whether you guys feel this is worthwhile?Are there any other stores with a deep categorised navigation structure, but a flat url structure?
thanks,
James
-
In which case I guess it comes down to how impactful any disruption might be....i.e., how many links do you have built up against your existing URLs?
If there isn't many - then its probably worth taking the jump and re-writing stuff now.
Ben
-
Cheers Ben,
I'm not so worried about the mechanics of rewriting the old URLs and keeping them unique as I can have all that covered. fairly easily
I'm more interested in how beneficial the end results may be and whether it's worth a disruption.
cheers,
James
-
I prefer flat URL structures, but I would think twice about the effort if my existing URL strings had built up some nice link equity.
When I worked at Premier Farnell for example, we went for flat URL structures without the hierarchy included, i.e., http://uk.farnell.com/d-subminiature rather than http://uk.farnell.com/connectors/d-subminiature
In my current role the URL strings are not great, but its a legacy thing before I started here: http://www.asiarooms.com/en/singapore/singapore/orchard_road.html but the site has strong link equity built up into many of the pages and I am loathed to go through another exercise of updating them and risking loss of business (even if only short term) as I suspect the benefit is probably not worth that cost.
Its a balancing act I guess.
Also, just be careful if you do decide to flatten them that you don't potentially caused duplication. For example, imagine you have duplicate categories called accessories.....you can only have 1 URL called http://ourshop.com/accessories so you might need to add some rules in to handle those correctly.
Ben
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
-
Smae Category Descriptions but in Different Cities
Hi, I was curious, if I have a guide with 20 categories, and that guide is in 10 different cities, can I have a category description for each city that simply swaps out the city name? Seattle Big Widgets
On-Page Optimization | | EBKMarketing
We offer the largest selection of widgets in the Seattle area. We have small widgets, medium widgets, large widgets. We have so many widgets, most people in Seattle are blown away by our selection. Portland Big Widgets We offer the largest selection of widgets in the Portland area. We have small widgets, medium widgets, large widgets. We have so many widgets, most people in Portland are blown away by our selection. Would this be considered duplicate content, if it's followed by distinct city listings? Writing 20 decriptions would be nicer than writing 200. Just trying to think about SEO, resources, best use of time, etc. Thanks0 -
Placement of key words in URL
I notice that the MOZ Page Grader considers "/keyword1/keyword2-keyword3" in a URL string to be less effective than "/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3". Is this correct from Google's perspective? If I am trying to maximise my SEO for the page title "Business building tips", for example, does Google think my URL is more relevant if it's in the form: 1. www.website.com/business-building-tips
On-Page Optimization | | Gavin.Atkinson
2. www.website.com/business/building-tips or
3. www.website.com/business/business-building-tips My instinct tells me 3 is more powerful, but logic tells me if I have a whole section devoted to "business" and one of those pages is "business building tips" then 2 should work just as well, possibly better?0 -
Duplicate content with tagging and categories
Hello, Moz is showing that a site has duplicate content - which appears to be because of tags and categories. It is a relatively new site, with only a few blog publications so far. This means that the same articles are displayed under a number of different tags and categories... Is this something I should worry about, or just wait until I have more content? The 'tag' and 'category' pages are not really pages I would expect or aim for anyone to find in google results anyway. Would be glad to here any advice / opinions on this Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | wearehappymedia1 -
Best URL structure for my page
Hey everyone, I am wondering what is the best URL structure for my activity booking page in Bali. http://www.thingstodoinbali.com/bali/sports/water-sports/rafting/ or http://www.thingstodoinbali.com/bali/sports/water-sports/rafting-bali/ or would you recommend something else? Most people would google for "activity bali" in this case "rafting bali". Please advice. Thanks for your time and help in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | c.eiermann0 -
URL Keyword Variations?
I'm aware that keywords in the url aren't as effective as they used to be, but I'm still convinced that they do have a significant impact (based on results in one of the niches I'm in). My question is, will variations of keywords and "hidden" keywords have as much value as an exact keyword? For example, let's say that I'm trying to target the keyword "day." Will including variations like "daily" in the url work just as well? What about a brand name that includes the keyword hidden in its name, like "Dayest"? And, as a followup question, does including "stop" words have any effect? For example, if I'm trying to target the keyword "Day of the Month", would including "day" and "month" in the url be just as effective as including "day of the month"?
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
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 -
Ecommerce - how many clicks from the home page should categories be
My client has about 300 products in 20 categories with a lot of overlap. How many clicks from the home page should we keep the products? We're not doing pagination. I'd been told several years ago that all products should be 2 clicks or less from the home page. Is this true today? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW1 -
Optimizing Wordpress Categories
I’m trying to optimize the category links in the wordpress blog http://blog.reputationforward.com. I’m in the process of installing the Yeost SEO plugin and am going to revise the Category Title Tags, Meta Descriptions and slugs. I’m also in the process of using Tags so that I can get the posts that appear in a category to be specific to that category (currently the publisher is listing posts in multiple categories: See “Business Management Category”). But other than that, is there anything else I can do to optimize each category?
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee341