Shorter URLs
-
Hi
Is there a real value in having the keywords in the URL structure?
we could use the URL:
Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/supertrader.html
Or instead have the CMS create the shorter version mybrand.com/supertrader.html
and just optimize this page for the keyword 'supertrader ipad software'
-
Thanks for this awesome recommendation!
Do you see any problem in shorting only the software (money making) category, while leaving other categories long?
such as
-
Hi Mozter,
I tend to agree with Cyrus on this issue, and both answers have already provided a great deal of insight.
But.. I'll throw my own two cents in as well, just in case you're still torn. There are Pros and Cons to each approach, as already mentioned. This dilemma most commonly arises when optimizing eCommerce based sites with multiple categories and subcategories, and a lot of times the best approach depends on the industry in question.
A little bit of keyword research is always important and will likely shed a lot of light on how users search for products in a particular niche. Google's Keyword Tool and SEOMoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool are both great resources.
Cyrus already noted several benefits of a shorter URL structure, and I'll expand on that as it relates to commerce driven platforms.
Like over-optimization, keyword cannibalization can be a major issue when optimizing products within the same category. For example, the URL you mentioned will likely have several similar URLs:
Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/supertrader.html
Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/product2.html
Mybrand.com/software/tablets/ipad/product3.html
and so on...
The result of this structure is that you have multiple URLs that are competing to rank for the same keywords (software, tablets, and ipad) and 9 times out of 10, all of the URLs will rank lower in Google, rather than a single URL ranking higher in the results.
If you were a potential customer, what would you search for? "SuperTrader Software for Ipad Tablet" or "SuperTrader for Ipad"? My guess would be the 2nd.
Assuming a more short-tail keyword search i.e. "Ipad Software", again you'll have multiple URLs containing those keywords, and likely a lower ranking for each.
Also remember, the shorter the URL, the more relevance that is placed on each keyword in that URL.
My suggestion is to use a flat structure that contains more descriptive keywords such as:
Mybrand.com/tablet-software/ (Category Page w/subcategories for each OS)
Mybrand.com/ipad-software/ (Category w/ software products for Ipad)
**Mybrand.com/supertrader-ipad/ **(Product - SuperTrader for iPad)
Mybrand.com/android-sofware/ (Category w/ software products for Android)
Mybrand.com/supertrader-android/ (Product - SuperTrader for Android)
This should allow better optimization for long-tail and short-tail keywords and help to avoid multiple URLs competing for the same keywords. It will be much easier to process for the user as well.
Also "Apps" may be a better choice than "Software" but I'm sure the competition is much fiercer.
Finally, on a side note, if you're using Magento as your CMS, I'd suggest removing the ".html" URL suffix from the URLs and Categories and replacing it with a trailing slash by going to System --> Configuration --> Catalog --> Search Engine Optimization. I'd be glad to help you with enabling the shorter URLs and Rel Canonical Meta Tags to best optimize this structure in Magento as well. If you're running another eCommerce Platform, I got nothin' for ya.
Hope this helps and good luck.
Anthony
-
Hi Mozter (nice username
I liked Martin's answer, so let me just add my own 2 cents.
Yes, there are advantages to having keywords in the URL, but there are also drawbacks as well. The keywords can not only be used as a contextual signal for Google - improving your rankings in some cases, but keywords can also help your click-through rate when the URL appears in search results.
Then there's the downside.
- Longer URLs are harder to share socially
- Longer URLs tend to rank slightly worse, for whatever reason
- Keyword stuffing / Over-optimization
Finally, many SEO believe in creating a flat directory structure, meaning most pages of your site should be as close to the root directory as possible. i.e. homepage.com/your-page-here. In my opinion, this is a better solution that having several directories in the same URL like homepage.com/keyword/keyword/keyword.
In cases like this, it's best to default to the user and try to optimize for their experience.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
"edit - sorry my iphone bunched my post up!"
Hi
Having the keyword in the URL is helpful in a number of ways;
1.) relevancy to the page
2.) branding
3.) easy of navigation (user experience)
4.) categorisationIt would be far better to include the keyword in the URL for the above reasons but also for future development of ur site.
For example, how would you target the title, page content, alt tags, images, technical info, metadata etc for search engines once you have say 5 different types of tablets? Rather than using ur short URL where all the products are competiting on the same page for rankings it would be much better for each to have a seperate page on ur website.
This will help you not only build targeted, keyword rich, relevant and helpful pages that have seperate rankings but will help to improve your conversion to sale & help lower bounce rates as you customers will land on a page of products they have searched for, as opposed to searching through a page of similar products for what they want.
Hope this helps but I can expand on this if you need!
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
-
What could cause Google to not honor canonical URLs?
I have a strange situation on a website, when I do a Google query of site:example.com all the top indexed results appear to be queries that users can perform on the website. So any random term the user searches for on the website for some reason is causing the search result page to get indexed - like example.com/search/query/random-keywords However, the search results page has a canonical tag on it that points to example.com/search, but that doesn't seem to be doing anything. Any thoughts or ideas why this could be happening?
Technical SEO | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
Duplicate Content - Different URLs and Content on each
Seeing a lot of duplicate content instances of seemingly unrelated pages. For instance, http://www.rushimprint.com/custom-bluetooth-speakers.html?from=topnav3 is being tracked as a duplicate of http://www.rushimprint.com/custom-planners-diaries.html?resultsperpg=viewall. Does anyone else see this issue? Is there a solution anyone is aware of?
Technical SEO | | ClaytonKendall0 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
One URL To All Sites, How Can I Avoid ?
I am using EMD and have an only 1 page which is the main url. Now my question is how can i avoid the penalty of submitting the same URL to the different platform like Web2.0, Article Directory etc. Please help.
Technical SEO | | seodadoo5670 -
URL redirect question
Hi all, Just wondering whether anybody has experience of CMSs that do a double redirect and what affect that has on rankings. here's the example /page.htm is 301 redirected to /page.html which is 301 redirected to /page As Google has stated that 301 redirects pass on benefits to the new page, would a double redirect do the same? Looking forward to hearing your views.
Technical SEO | | A_Q0 -
New website with slightly new urls
Hi we recently designed our website in work and changed some of the urls. the old site used to be http://www.example.ie/contact-us.htm now it's is http://example.ie/get-in-touch The problem we are having is with sitelinks (the ones auto generate in the serp) ie: about, contact us, team etc etc. Once cliked on, these OLD links are all going to 404 pages because of the change of url. Help with this would be greatly appreciated - I was thinking of blocking these old sitelinks in google web master.
Technical SEO | | GlenBOB0 -
Rel=Canonical to Rewrite or original URL?
Working with a large number of duplicate pages due to different views of products. Rewriting URLs for the most linked page. Should rel=canonical point to the rewritten URL or the actual URL? Is there a way to see what the rewritten URL is within the crawl data? I was taking the approach of rewriting only the base version of each page and then using a rel=canonical on the duplicate pages. Can anyone recommend a better or cleaner approach? Haven't seen too many articles on retail SEO when faced with a less than optimized CMS. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AmsiveDigital0 -
URL's for news content
We have made modifications to the URL structure for a particular client who publishes news articles in various niche industries. In line with SEO best practice we removed the article ID from the URL - an example is below: http://www.website.com/news/123/news-article-title
Technical SEO | | mccormackmorrison
http://www.website.com/news/read/news-article-title Since this has been done we have noticed a decline in traffic volumes (we have not as yet assessed the impact on number of pages indexed). Google have suggested that we need to include unique numerical IDs in the URL somewhere to aid spidering. Firstly, is this policy for news submissions? Secondly (if the previous answer is yes), is this to overcome the obvious issue with the velocity and trend based nature of news submissions resulting in false duplicate URL/ title tag violations? Thirdly, do you have any advice on the way to go? Thanks P.S. One final one (you can count this as two question credits if required), is it possible to check the volume of pages indexed at various points in the past i.e. if you think that the number of pages being indexed may have declined, is there any way of confirming this after the event? Thanks again! Neil0