E Commerce Product URL SEO

[PASSLtd]

Hi, first question here.

In response to Paddy's wonderful article and Rand's related article from 09 I've found myself asking this question.

"www.home.co.uk/product" or "www.home.co.uk/category/product"

As I'm currently reviewing the structure for so many of our e com sites the article comes at a great time.

I'm going for home/category/product so I can optimise for a category, as category based searches are quite high and competitive.

Yes some products can appear in 2 categories but I'm combating it with 301's or image based links.

What are your thoughts.

[StevenvanVessum]

I would go for the nice product URL's with (sub)categories in it. That way users and search engines will understand your website better imho. You should of course think well about your website structure before you launch. If you do that well and you're quite sure you're doing the right thing you should be good.

I'm very interested in why David chose the /product system. Did that give your better results in the SERPS?

[DaveDawson]

breadcrumbs was exactly what I was going to say

[Aran_Smithson]

Thats down to a inherent limitation of our CMS, and a massive pai i the backside.

if I had a choice it would be /Category/Product. Other sites which I have worked on over the years I've always used Category/product to great effect

[PASSLtd]

There seems to be a whole load of information floating around the web about canonical and redirects but all only give suggestions of where each can be used apposed to a definitive best practice answer.

If anyone has tested the effectiveness of each it would be great to see some examples.

[PASSLtd]

Hanger world is currently using /home/product/product ID

As apposed to home/category/product.

[Aran_Smithson]

Think usability, if Im browsing the category, /Buttons/BlueButtonsadBuckles and I get redirected to /Buckles/BlueButtonandBuckles, all of a sudden I'm not where I am and I didnt ask to be moved.

See my point?

[PASSLtd]

Thanks for the reply.

I can see on your site your using redirects to the home/product.

It seems a great way to go, Id assume that optimising a category with 301 links to products will pass on the "juice".

The shorter url is favored by search engines anyway I suppose.

[PASSLtd]

Thanks for the reply.

I would agree for usability the category/product options is better, but could be tackled using breadcrumbs?

Is using canonical when category produces duplicate content not just a lazy alternative to 301's?

Shouldn't 301 redirects be used when a product appears in more than one category?

Would having home/product with canonical and 301's from /category/product not be the best option?

[Aran_Smithson]

Don't think SEO, think User Experience...

My personal preference is for /category/product for the simple reason that the URL looks better and a visitor can establish their position within the site just by glancing at the URL.

get round the dupe product issue by being able to specify which Category is to be the primary category for a product and then set a canonical tag to reflect this.

Info on canonicals here http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization

Regards

Aran

[DaveDawson]

I would stick with /product to be honest.  that way in the future when you decide to move products around and combine categories etc you will not have as much work to do with 301 redirects.

I have tried both,  after 12 months I decided to move to the /product system,  it was a massive overhaul but it was worth the effort in the end.