Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
URL structure for multiple cities?
-
Hi, i am in the process of setting up a business directory site that will be used in a number of cities, though i am initially launching with only one city.
My question is, what is the best URL structure to use for the site and should i start using this URL structure from day one?
At the moment i am using www.mysite.com.au as my primary website where it contains all listings for the the one initial launch city.
Though to plan for the future i was considering this URL structure:
so for example, if i launch in the city Sydney initially then all website traffic that goes to www.mysite.com.au would simply be redirected (302 temp redirect?) to www.mysite.com.au/sydney.
When i expand to other cities www.mysite.com.au would simply be a "select your city" screen that then redirects to the city of choice (similar to www.groupon.com page).
How would doing a 302 redirect from www.mysite.com.au to www.mysite.com.au/city impact on SEO for the initial launch? Or should i just place this on the root domain since no other cities exist at the moment?
-
If it's just a few cities, it's probably not a big deal either way, and the search results could give you a landing page. If you really plan to expand down the road, I think I'd go with your alternative approach, at least for now. Keep Google on the main site, and you can let users select their appropriate city page (and cookie that).
If, down the road, you've got a good structure and solid back-links, and you want to open up the city pages to crawlers, you can always change that later. It's not black-and-white, but in 2012 I think it's best to go out narrow and really focus your link profile on your core pages, expanding once you've got the authority and history to make it work.
-
Thanks Peter.
Just a question in regards to your first point (1). Each city page page will simply have a search box. The results will be filtered to only return entries for that particular city (as derived from the URL - ie Sydney filter will be applied if URL is www.mysite.com.au/sydney).
I am now thinking the best option for this setup would be to have the search box located on the root domain www.mysite.com.au (and no longer have the city pages), and simply have a drop down list box next to the search box to allow the city filter to be applied. What do you think of this idea?
I could then also use cookies to set the default value of the city select list based on previous visit selection.
-
Unfortunately, it's a tricky situation, and I'm not sure there's one "right" answer. I think some of the feedback in the comments is definitely accurate, but it depends on the circumstances. There are two big factors to consider:
(1) It's probably best not to spin out hundreds of city pages, if they're just a template with a few geo-targeted words changed around. This used to be common practice to rank for long-tail terms, but since Panda, it's really gotten to be risky. If Google sees hundreds or thousands of thing pages, your entire site could be penalized. Meanwhile, those thin pages don't generally rank well, even best-case.
(2) The 302-redirect is going to leave link-juice at the home-page, but still allow Google to crawl the city-based pages. If you're using geo-location, it probably doesn't matter whether you use a 301 or 302, honestly, because Google is going to come via US IPs and it will never trigger an Australian-based location. So, you need to make sure your solution works for the crawlers and decide where you want them to land.
-
Ok i see.
Does having a much heavier weight on the city page (ie Sydney), rather than the root domain have much of an impact if people are searching for "[business name] Sydney"? I guess www.mysite.com.au/sydney would be shown in search results rather than www.mysite.com.au?
Are you suggesting that having a "city selection" page hosted on www.mysite.com.au would be the best option from an SEO perspective? (Even though there is only one city).
Thanks
-
You wouldn't get penalized for the 302. 302's normally aren't used because they don't pass along link juice but in this case that is not your concern. What might create an issue for you is that people will like your site and then choose to link to it, but it will most likely be the Sydney link structure if that's the route you go, most people copy and paste the URL and then use it as a link. Then when you redo all your structures you will have one city page with a crazy amount of link juice but a main URL with no link juice. You won't be able to fix it either with a 301 because then no one will be able to see your Sydney page. You will create a problem for yourself in that sense. Hope this helps.
-
HI, first i will support other answers and will not recommend the redirect from the same reasons.
regard the URL i will like you to look at this site that i am working on www.123locksmith.com and see the way we did the city pages.
working great with this system and this site is up in major keywords and city, i will recommend you have some changes in the content and not just change the city name.
i will recommend to start with the city pages from day one because if you will work on a strong DA by the time you get to this pages it will be easy to work on.
hope that help you
Mike
-
Plan for today didn’t make sense to me and as far as the URL structure is concern you should have to have ea long term planning for that.
If I would be at your place I would be happy to see the URL structure which is somewhat similar to you. For example I launch a bakery business in Melbourne my ideal URL should be:
this way the URLs will be organized and user can easily find where his business can be available, even by looking at the URL.
As far as your idea of 302 redirections is concern I might not support that so if redirection is necessary at any point then go for 301 permanent redirections.
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks for the reply Joel.
Since there will only be one city initially, is there any negative impact (in terms of SEO), in doing a simple redirect from www.mysite.com.au to /sydney?
-
I'm a believer in planning for the future. So I would go with www.mysite.com.au and then have the city option of Sydney and with a comment "more cities coming soon" this way you wouldn't have to worry about having a 302 redirect or changing domains later. Hope this helps good luck.
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
-
JSON-LD product page markup for multiple currencies?
I haven't found a working example of a single product page with one "Offer" in multiple "priceCurrency" and "price" We have product pages with a single product URL which will offer different prices in different currencies based on the user's IP. Some of the language of the page will be translated based on the IP (this will have href lang tag) but the URL will not change. (We're aware TLD is considered best practice, however, this is not an option at this time.) Is the best option to update the markup based on what the corresponding "country"? I'm uncertain how this may be handled by crawlers. Eg, For the product page https://www.example.com/product1 displaying USD "offers": {
Web Design | | sb1030
"@type": "Offer",
"url": "https://www.example.com/product1",
"itemCondition": "https://schema.org/NewCondition",
"availability": "InStock",
"priceCurrency": "USD",
"price": "7.99"} For the product pagehttps://www.example.com/product1 displaying EUR "offers": {
"@type": "Offer",
"url": "https://www.example.com/product1",
"itemCondition": "https://schema.org/NewCondition",
"availability": "InStock",
"priceCurrency": "EUR",
"price": "7.50"} Thanks for any input.0 -
What’s the best tool to visualize internal link structure and relationships between pages on a single site?
I‘d like to review the internal linking structure on my site. Is there a tool that can visualize the relationships between all of the pages within my site?
Web Design | | QBSEO0 -
Will interlinking using dynamic parameters in url help us in increasing our rankings
Hi, Will interlinking our internal pages using dynamic parameters(like abc.com/property-in-noida?source=footer) help us in increasing our rankings for linked pages OR we should use static urls for interlinking Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
Anyone using CloudFlare on multiple sites?
We are considering using CloudFlare as a CDN for a large group of sites. The fees are $5 to $200 depending on many factors. We tried the free trial on one site and were impressed with the results. I am wondering if any of you have any longer term experience with this and performance metrics, etc.
Web Design | | RobertFisher1 -
Duplicate content on websites for multiple countries
I have a client who has a website for their U.S. based customers. They are currently adding a Canadian dealer and would like a second website with much of the same info as their current website, but with Canadian contact info etc. What is the best way to do this without creating duplicate content that will get us penalized? If we create a website at ABCcompany.com and ABCCompany.ca or something like that, will that get us around the duplicate content penalty?
Web Design | | InvoqMarketing0 -
Does Google count the domain name in its 115-character "ideal" URL length?
I've been following various threads having to do with URL length and Google's happiness therewith and have yet to find an answer to the question posed in the title. Some answers and discussions have come close, but none I've found have addressed this with any specificity. Here are four hypothetical URLs of varying lengths and configurations: EXAMPLE ONE:
Web Design | | RScime25
my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (115 characters) EXAMPLE TWO: sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (126 characters) EXAMPLE THREE: www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (130 characters) EXAMPLE FOUR: http://www.sample.com/my-big-widgets-are-the-best-widgets-in-the-world-and-come-in-many-vibrant-and-unique-colors-and-configurations.html (137 characters) Assuming the examples contain appropriate keywords and are linked to appropriate anchor text (etc.,) how would Google look upon each? All I've been able to garner thus far is that URLs should be as short as possible while still containing and contextualizing keywords. I have 500+ URLs to review for the company I work for and could use some guidance; yes, I know I should test, but testing is problematical to the extreme; I look to the collective/accumulated wisdom of the MOZVerse for help. Thanks.1 -
URLs with Hashtags - Does Google Index Them?
Hi there, I have a potential issue with a site whereby all pages are dynamically populated using Javascript. Thus, an example of an URL on their site would be www.example.com/#!/category/product. I have read lots of conflicting information on the web - some says Google will ignore everything after the hashtag; other people say that Google will now index everything after the hashtag. Does anybody have any conclusive information about this? Any links to Google or Matt Cutts as confirmation would be brilliant. P.S. I am aware about the potential issue of duplicate content, but I can assure you that has been dealt with. I am only concerned about whether Google will index full URLs that contain hashtags. Thanks all! Mark
Web Design | | markadoi840 -
Custom URL's with Bigcommerce Issue (Is it worth it?)
We're building out a store in Bigcommerce, who for all intensive purposes is perfect for SEO besides the fact that you can not change the URL's to be custom. My question is, does this kill the SEO value of bigcommerce, despite everything else being great? So for example the URL's for a category page would be something like this www.mysite.com/categories/keyword and the product URL's are pulled in by product name, so product URL's could be something like www.mysite.com/products/Product-Description-Long-223.html (notice the words will be capitalized and their is no way to remove the trailing .html) I could go with Interspire (the liscenced version of Bigcommerce) or Magento so I can custom edit this stuff. But then its a lot more work for my employee's on the buildout.
Web Design | | iAnalyst.com0