I need help to define which is the best friendly url structure

[LeonardoLima]

Hi,

I need some help to define which is the best friendly url structure for my new project, I'm in doubt for some cases, anyone could help me define which would be the best way?

domain.com/buy-online/0-1,this-cool-model    or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model,0-1    or
domain.com/buy-online/0-1/this-cool-model    or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model/0-1    or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model_0-1    or
domain.com/buy-online/this-cool-model?Model=0&OtherParam=1

Thanks!

Best Regards,
Leonardo Lima

[Letty]

Hi, just a quick question for Visiblics, because I'm kind in a similar situation as Leonardo who has posted this question.

I'm about to change the complete URL structure of a website. In your comments you posted that the URL structure should always be meaningfull (I was always in this mindset). But one of the webinars of this year (july 2012) from Everett Sizemore

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/ecommerce-seo-fix-and-avoid-common-issues

is actually saying a bit the opposite of what you suggesting. see video approx after 34 min.

He's is saying, take out of the Category and subcategory from the products URL's. Could you please give more insights why you still think keep the Category and subcategory in the URL?

ecommerce-seo-fix-and-avoid-common-issues

[LeonardoLima]

yes... this will be a big problem... but until now the fastest way to avoid is use the canonical tag...
this site is new, I published it yesterday this help´s something? rss

[matbennett]

either of those is a legitimate URL. However I'd focus on the potential duplicate content issue first.

[LeonardoLima]

I read on the web to avoid use "," or "_" to this is the reason that I separated my parameters in the final slash..

Is this true? That I need avoid "," or "_" on my url ? If I could use any of those characters my url would be like this:
www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/huawei-2555,0-2
or
www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/huawei-2555_0-2

what do you think?

[matbennett]

That sounds sensible, yes.

It might take a while for Google to take notice of the canonical. It can take a long time sometimes, but that approach does sound sensible.

[LeonardoLima]

Resuming:

Is correct to do this:

http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/fale-a-vontade/any_param1-any_param2-any_param3
http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/alcatel-ot-208/any_param1-any_param2-any_param3

http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone"/>

[matbennett]

It might be useful to have those terms in the URL of a page, but if those pages are duplicate then you could face penalties.

Each URL needs to point to a distinct page. If you are serving very similar pages with different URLs you will undoubtably run in to trouble.  The impact of such a penalty will often far outweigh the small benefit of an extra keyword in the URL

[LeonardoLima]

yes, the option to post the information for this page can be considered, but it is not as simple as I have several options and would have to add several separate forms for each option

[LeonardoLima]

Hi,

Now I'm worried, with the case "assine-por-telefone/fale-a-vontade" and "assine-por-telefone/huawei-2555" could generate duplicated content ? Because its the same form.. there is any way to avoid this?

Its interesting for me have the words "fale-a-vontade" and "huawei-2555" on my URL... so I need avoid be penalised... but I don´t know how...

[GeorgeAndrews]

Can you send your parameters as POST data? I think this might be preferred if you do not want to index a URL with the parameters tacked onto the end.

[LeonardoLima]

Hi,

I replied in the previous answer my real url structure, but 0-2 is any parameter that I need to my application this parameters I treat the application..
So for SEO is safe I pass all my parameters in the end of the URL? like anyurl/any/any/param-param-param-param ?

[matbennett]

I think I understand.  You actually don't want a search friendly url for this! The danger here is that you are going to create lots of URLs with essentially the same content. That will result in duplicate content problems, which could see you penalised.

Instead you want just a single version of that page indexed.

I would do something like :

http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/fale-a-vontade?select=Aparelho

&

http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/fale-a-vontade?select=Plano

I would then block search engines from indexing the different select values (there are several ways to do this - for instance in robots.txt or using a rel=canonical)

[Visiblics]

To answer you query I need to understand the significance of 0-1.

Though as per my understanding/experience

URL structure should always be meaningful, like:

domain.com/ Products/ main category / sub category / product name / model number

OR

domain.com/ service/ category/ service name.html

OR

domain.com/ Manufacturers/ Products/ product category/ sub category/ product name/ model number

Hope this helps

[LeonardoLima]

My actual url is: http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone

this page have an dynamic form that is filled by the parameters passed..

if http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/0-2,huawei-2555 then the field "Aparelho" will be filled,

no in 0-2 the "2" is the code to fill "Aparelho" and "0" is just to keep the parameter place (this is needed for "Planos")

and if http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/27-0,fale-a-vontade then the field "Planos" will be filled

can you understand?

So I could not understand your answer, one other way that I could do this is like:
http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/fale-a-vontade?IdAparelho=X
http://www.vendasclarofixo.com.br/assine-por-telefone/fale-a-vontade?IdPlano=y

This is this good to SEO? And google organic ?

[irvingw]

This is a hard question to answer without knowing what 0-1 means. Is this a model number of a model car for example?

I can definitely say that you should not include the directory /buy-online/ it's spammy and unnecessary

If this is a model number then putting it as a folder name doesn't make any sense because that car will be the only model page in that folder.

Since the name of the model is what people will be search for mostly, it should go in the filename not the folder since keywords in filenames are stronger

no commas in filenames

Therefore I would recommend assuming that i understand this correctly (it's a bit too vague)

www..domain.com/manufacturer/name-of-model-modelnumber or

www..domain.com/manufacturer/modelnumber-name-of-model or

www..domain.com/type-of-model/modelnumber-name-of-model

would look something like

www..paintablemodels.com/corgi/dodge-charger-071566

www..paintablemodels.com/corgi/071566-dodge-charger

www..paintablemodels.com/sports-cars/071566-dodge-charger

[matbennett]

Elements that represent the same entity should be kept together. So name_model makes sense (personally I'd preder namewithspacesstripped-model).  One word of caution there: if you are relying on the model number being passed then be sure that you are testing for the correct URL and either showing a canonical or 301ing to the correct domain so that you don't end up with duplicates like namespelledwrong-model and namedSpelledwrong-model.

What is the mystery other parameter?   If it is tied to the model then group it in the same way ( name-model-other). If it doesn't change content I would use a url param (name-model?var=other)