What happens to content under a category page that is not indexed?

[hoch]

We are reevaluating our URL structure. We have a flat architecture but would like to add subfolders per recommendations here and elsewhere. Some of our category pages are ad heavy/content light so we have them no indexed. We do have lots of quality content on the site that we would like to put under some of these keyword categories. Should we leave it flat? If Google does not see that category page then there will be no link from the homepage to the content page?

Now: homepage/content-page

Proposed: homepage/category/content-page (category is not indexed)

[hoch]

Thanks for the reply.

A couple of comments:

• Do you have an opinion about using the structure I listed above if we are no indexing some categories?
• If we are using the keywords in the title, why are you recommending we leave out the category? Will it be overoptimized as that is another concern.
• We have talked about breadcrumbs for our deeper sites. I thought you needed to have categories to implement these. Is this not true?

[Saijo.George]

To make navigations easier you could use breadcrumbs. So when the result show up in SERPS you can get

Home > Category >  Post

and the breadcrumbs should also be prominently displayed on the site.  I believe it heps spiders and users alike in figuring out the contents structure on your site.

In regards to the proposed structure .. is the category a keyword you would like to target on those pages ? For example if you have Home/Melbourne/CafeHome/Melbourne/MoviesIt would make sense to include Melbourne in there if you are targeting that location .But for something likeHome/News/Keyword-Post-Title Home/News/Keyword-Post-Title2Where your keywords are formed in the post title rather than the category , I would leave it out.One other thing to consider is when changing the structure , you should follow the best practices and make sure you redirect the old ones to the new ones . This is a good starting place : http://www.seomoz.org/blog/should-i-change-my-urls-for-seoAt the end of the day , it depends on what content you offer and you alone can make the decision .. if  having the category in the url will help you rank better