Variables in URLS?
-
How much do variables in URLs hurt indexing of that page? I'm worried that with this huge string of variables that the pages won't get indexed.
Here's what I think we should have: http://adomainname.com/New/Local/State/City/Make/Model/
Here's the current URL:http://adomainname.com/New/Local/MN/Bayport/Jeep/Liberty?curPage=1&pageResultSize=50&orderDir=DESC&orderBy=ModifiedDate&conditionId=1&makeId=7&modelId=141&stateProvinceName=Minnesota&mc=1
-
Gotcha thx for the help
-
I'm not finding a great example, offhand, but basically, I'm suggesting that you could have city/state URLs, like:
www.example.com/illinois/chicago
...make model URLs, like:
...and individual product URLs, like:
www.example.com/honda-crv-1234
... but that you DON'T mix the first two and end up with something like:
www.example.com/illinois/chicago/honda/crv
....because you're going to spin out a ton of thin content. There's no perfect way these days to even do a lot of state/city pages - Panda hasn't been kind to that. Ideally, you need to have some sort of unique content for each one. If you're just spinning out content to target keywords, you're likely to harm your site eventually.
-
Hey Pete can you please point out a site that does this.
I know that its not good to add too many links to any page and we should only target two keywords on each page. What is the best way to optimize for every city within a state?
lets say we had 20 cities we want to target, is it best to build 10 pages each one targeting two keywords? what is the best practice for this?
-
Yeah, my gut reaction (although there's no one-sized-fits-all answer for every site) is in line with @blu42 - it's not so much about the folder-depth here, it's that this structure is inevitably going to create "thin" content, possibly by the truckload. Post-Panda, the days of just spinning out state+city+product are pretty much gone. It used to work great for long-tail search. Now, you risk it not only not working, but actually damaging your entire site.
It would be much better, IMO to have some kind of state/city structure but then land on the same make/model page, regardless of geography. You can get some kind of geo-targeting that way AND landing pages for products, but don't try to cross them on every variation. The tiny amount of long-tail traffic you pick up will probably be dwarfed by the problems you'll have.
-
It should get indexed however it is very deep...
Its probably better idea to have it structured http://adomainname.com/Category/Location/Make&Model/
-
Ahhh, you will definitely run into duplicate content issues!
You want to include a rel="canonical" to point to the domain & path without the variables. You don't want this sort of URL to be indexed (use robots: noindex,follow); it's much better to show the clean URL in Google.
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
-
SEO URLs: 1\. URLs in my language (Greek, Greeklish or English)? 2\. Αt the end it is good to put -> .html? What is the best way to get great ranking?
Hello all, I must put URLs in my language Greek, Greeklish or in English? And at the end of url it is good to put -> .html? For exampe www.test.com/test/test-test.html ? What is the best way to get great ranking? I am a new digital marketing manager and its my first time who works with a programmer who doesn't know. I need to know as soon as possible, because they want to be "on air" tomorrow! Thank you very much for your help! Regards, Marios
Technical SEO | | marioskal0 -
Dynamic Url best approach
Hi We are currently in the process of making changes to our travel site where by if someone does a search this information can be stored and also if the user needs to can take the URL and paste into their browser at find that search again. The url will be dynamic for every search, so in order to stop duplicate content I wanted ask what would be the best approach to create the URLS. ** An example of the URL is: ** package-search/holidays/hotelFilters/?depart=LGW&arrival=BJV&sdate=20150812&edate=20150819&adult=2&child=0&infant=0&fsearch=first&directf=false&nights=7&tsdate=&rooms=1&r1a=2&r1c=0&r1i=0&&dest=3&desid=1&rating=&htype=all&btype=all&filter=no&page=1 I wanted to know if people have previous experience in something like this and what would be the best option for SEO. Will we need to create the URL with a # ( As i read this stops google crawling after the #) Block the folder IN ROBOTS is there any other areas I should be aware of in order stop any duplicate content and 404 pages once the URL/HOLIDAY SEARCH is no longer valid. thanks E
Technical SEO | | Direct_Ram0 -
High DA url rewrite to your url...would it increase the Ranking of a website?
Hi, my client use a recruiting management tool called njoyn.com. The url of his site look like: www.example.njoyn.com. Would it increase his ranking if I use this Url above that point to njoyn domain wich has a high DA, and rewrite it to his site www.example.com? If yes how? Thanks
Technical SEO | | bigrat950 -
URL - Well Formed or Malformed
Hi Mozzers, I've been mulling over whether my URLs could benefit a little SEO tweaking. I'd be grateful for your opinion. For instance, we've a product, a vintage (second hand), red Chanel bag. At the moment the URL is: www.vintageheirloom.com/vintage-chanel-bags/2.55-bags/red-2.55-classic-double-flap-bag-1362483150 Broken down... vintage-chanel-bags = this is the main product category, i.e. vintage chanel bags 2.55-bags = is a sub category of the main category above. They are vintage Chanel 2.55 bags, but I've not included 'vintage' again. 2.55 bags are a type of Chanel bag. red-2.55-classic-double-flap-bag = this is the product, the bag **1362483150 **= this is a unique id, to prevent the possibility of duplicate URLs As you no doubt can see we target, in particular, the phrase **vintage. **The actual bag / product title is: Vintage Chanel Red 2.55 classic double flap bag 10” / 25cm With this in mind, would I be better off trying to match the product name with the end of the URL as closely as possible? So a close match below would involve not repeating 'chanel' again: www.vintageheirloom.com/chanel-bags/2.55-bags/vintage-red-2.55-classic-double-flap-bag or an exact match below would involve repeating 'chanel': www.vintageheirloom.com/chanel-bags/2.55-bags/vintage-chanel-red-2.55-classic-double-flap-bag This may open up more flexibility to experiment with product terms like second hand, preowned etc. Maybe this is a bad idea as I'm removing the phrase 'vintage' from the main category. But this logical extension of this looks like keyword stuffing !! www.vintageheirloom.com/vintage-chanel-bags/vintage-2.55-bags/vintage-chanel-red-2.55-classic-double-flap-bag Maybe this is over analyzing, but I doubt it? Thanks for looking. Kevin
Technical SEO | | well-its-1-louder0 -
SEO friendly url strategy...
Hi guys i just wanted your expert opinion on keywords in urls. The example i'm giving you is in regards to a ecommerce website: Option 1: www.example.com/shop/coffee/coffee-beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr Option 2: www.example.com/shop/coffee/beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr We sell coffee so i'll keep the example relevant 🙂 Does it make a difference on how the keywords are stacked throughout? Would the search engine combine the two keywords eg. .../coffee/beans/... or would i be better of having .../coffee/coffee-beans/... and is there a penalty for having the same phrase more than once in the url? I hope my question makes sense... 😉 Looking forward to your opinions and ideas!
Technical SEO | | Immanuel0 -
3 URLS Being Created All For The Same Page
I use wordpress for my blog and for some reason it is creating triple urls for my pages. I am not sure it has always been like this or not. I just noticed it in the errors section of SEO Moz. http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/?gid=7&r=20 http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/ashley-and-daniels-rainy-day-diy-farm-wedding/?gid=7&r=20 http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/ashley-and-daniels-rainy-day-diy-farm-wedding/ It's all the exact same page. Is there something I can do in my settings to make this stop. I don't imagine this is good. Ya think....ha! I saw this is the SEO Moz error area for Missing Title Tags. Apparently the number has gone from 200 to 400 which is weird because I never gave my blog posts meta stuff and I haven't written 200 pages since SEO Moz's last crawl.
Technical SEO | | annasusmiles
Maybe I changed something on my blog settings without even knowing. I can't think for the life of me what that would be though. Thanks so much and I appreciate any help received. Edited to add: I added some plugins over the past week. Maybe it's one of these? Category Text Category SEO Meta Tags (just deactivated this one) PhotoSmash (also deactivated this one) Clicky for WordPress0 -
Urls with or without .html ending
Hello, Can anyone show me some authority info on wheher links are better with or without a .html ending? Thanks is advance
Technical SEO | | sesertin0 -
Changing url structure
We are an ecommerce site established in 2005 and currently have some great rankings. We are about to move away from our existing platform, actinic and move on to Magento. This will change all our url's. What are the steps we should be asking our web developers to follow in order to minimize the consequences of moving? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | LadyApollo0