Basic URL Structure Question
-
Hi,
Putting together a URL for a product we are selling. We sell IT Training courses and the structure is normally
Top Folder=Main Courses section
Sub Folder=Vendor
Page Specific=Course Name + Term
An example is
courses/microsoft/mcse-training
However I have a product where the vendor and course name are the same. How should I best organise the URL - double mention or single mention
So a)
courses/togaf/togaf-foundation-training
or b)
courses/togaf/foundation-training
-
Pranav, I suspect you are misinterpreting what has been said and you are also getting your words confused.
Characters are different to words. For example the url http://www.this-is-an-example.com has four words (this is an example) and 33 characters. What you have been saying is that character number 1 has more weight than character 33. This is inaccurate.
What I believe you are trying to say, is what Matt Cutts mentions in the interview you posted, that multiple keywords in a URL are given less weight after about the fourth or fifth keyword. I suggest that you read the articles you quote more carefully before offering erroneous advice.
-
Crimson,
John Doherty is one of the foremost authorities in SEO.
And please find below my comment where Google's Matt Cutts says that after 5 words Google gives less weight to the other words.
-
**1. If you see Google's blog you'll realize that keyword value decreases with each character in the URL. **
http://www.johnfdoherty.com/lessons-from-google-about-url-lengths/
Pranav, I fail to see where you are getting this information from. Firstly, the link you posted is not from Google's blog, it is a blog post from an SEO. Secondly, he does not provide hard evidence to support your claim that keyword value decreases with each character.
-
Also you can check out this resource -
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-best-practices-for-url-structure/7216/
According to Google’s Matt Cutts if there are more than 5 words…
Algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.”
-
Does the order of the words in the URL matter?
-
Irving,
1. If you see Google's blog you'll realize that keyword value decreases with each character in the URL.
http://www.johnfdoherty.com/lessons-from-google-about-url-lengths/
But your point is also correct that the file name has more value than the folder name.
3. Agree that it's important to put all required keywords into the URL. And sites like Quora have really long URL's.
But one should try to keep the URL length to a minimum I feel as shorter URL's tend to have higher click through rates.
-
Crimson, The URL is not the only factor in the ranking.
Many other factors including -
1. Off pages SEO
2. Content
3. Domain authority
Etc.
The points in my answer above display how to optimize your URL.
But you can't just optimize your URL and reach the top of the rankings.
-
i personally wouldnt entertain subfolder/aftersubfolder/aftersubfolder but look at how you may be able to do something like /subfolder-productx-examplez. Dont bury the pages too far in your url structure.
-
I'm going to thumbs up Irving's response on this. I will add that my preference would be to use this URL structure if you only have one type of training per vendor:
/courses/togaf-foundation-training
/courses/microsoft-msce-training
And if you have multiple training courses per vendor, I would use the following:
/courses/togaf/foundation-training
/courses/microsoft/msce-training
Hope this helps!
-
This information is misleading and inaccurate.
A search for [car insurance] in google UK returns a moneysupermarket page at number 1 that contains 39 characters in the URL. Looking further down the results there is a post office result with over 50 characters in the URL.
Also, your theory about the 'value of the keyword reducing with each character' is total nonsense.
-
Personally, I would go with the second option:
courses/togaf/foundation-training
Mainly because it looks a lot neater and you don't really need to mention 'togaf' twice in the URL.
Really you should try to keep your URLs as neat and user friendly as possible whilst keeping the relevant keywords. I generally try to keep them as short as possible without sacrificing essential keywords and pay no attention to the advice about keeping the length of your URL to 35 characters because google only displays 35, this is incorrect.
Hope that helps,
Adam.
-
1. The value of the Keyword reduces with each character. The first character has highest value and the last the lowest. where did you hear that? the file name is more important than the folder name for SEO
2. Google only counts the first mention of a Keyword and the 2nd mention of Toga doesn't add any value. Agree, more than one instance is stuffing. This is exponentially true when you create URLs that have a keyword mentioned twice in the URL, and then if the page is linking several times to these sections you create too high of a keyword density. Google prefers less and doesn't want keywords shoved down their throat.
3. Plus Google only displays 35 characters of the URL so one should aim to keep the total length of the URL below 35 chars. I respectfully disagree, just because Google only shows 35 characters in the display doesn't mean they disregard the keywords in the remainder of the URL - they are just doing that to keep the display looking clean - 35 characters is nothing. Most blogs go WAY over that with autogenerated filenames, it's all a matter of making sure you don't keyword stuff.
-
B. courses/togaf/foundation-training
1. The value of the Keyword reduces with each character. The first character has highest value and the last the lowest.
2. Google only counts the first mention of a Keyword and the 2nd mention of Toga doesn't add any value.
3. Plus Google only displays 35 characters of the URL so one should aim to keep the total length of the URL below 35 chars.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Submitted URL has crawl issue - Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404 - but all looks fine
Google Search Console is showing some pages up as "Submitted URL has crawl issue" but they look fine to me. I have set them as fixed but after a month they were finally re-crawled and google states the issue persists. Examples are: https://www.rscpp.co.uk/counselling/175809/psychology-alcester-lanes-end.html
Technical SEO | | TommyNewmanCEO
https://www.rscpp.co.uk/browse/location-index/889/index-of-therapy-in-hanger-lane.html
https://www.rscpp.co.uk/counselling/274646/psychology-waltham-forest-sexual-problems.html There's also some "Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404": https://www.rscpp.co.uk/counselling/112585/counselling-moseley-depression.html I also have more which are "pending", but again I couldn't see a problem with them in the first place. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. Any advice? Thanks in advance.0 -
Change in url structure - added category page
I have recently started an e-commerce website and have now changed the url structure and added another level to my category pages. So where it before was www.website.com/shirts it is now www.website.com/clothes/shirts. So I added the clothes category (just an example) before the shirt category and am now finding that the old url is still found in the search index and is still live on my site. How could this be? I use wordpress and simply change the urls in the backend. The products are still under www.website.com/product/blue-shirt-123 so they won't be affected but I suppose it now means I have duplicate category pages? So my question is: Should I 301 the the old category page (www.website.com/shirts)to the new url (www.website.com/clothes/shirts). And how can the old url still be live on my site? If this was a bit unclear, please let me know. Appreciate your replies!
Technical SEO | | bitte0 -
Would these be considered dynamic URLs?
Hi, I have a (brand) new client (outdoor recreation), and it links to many different lodges. It's built in Wordpress (Pagelines), and the partner page link URLs. Although they do have the "?" in there, it's only has a single parameter. http://www.clientsite/?partners=partner-name Google is indexing the URLs, I do plan to increase the amount of content/on-page for each. Yet, weighing the risk/reward of rewriting all of these URLs.
Technical SEO | | csmithal0 -
Regarding Canonical Url
We have a e-commerce website. Our own homegrown:-) We recently visited Google Webmaster tools and could see that Google mention we have double Meta tags for some main and subcategories. Each Product Category on our site have a subcategory/ Sub url - "Bestseller", "On Sale", "just arrived". The sub url is not a really a real category and we can therefore not make totally unique description and title for does urls. domain.com/category domain.com/category/bestseller
Technical SEO | | areygie
domain.com/category/on-sale
domain.com/category/just-arrived We are thinking about 2 solutions. 1. Canonical Url on subcategory pointing to main category.
2. Or add a word bestseller, on sale or just arrived in front of the meta title/description. We can do this from code. I personally opt for option 1. But I am little unsure what is the best way to go. Thanks in advance for your advice0 -
Where to place your brandname in your URL?
Hello everybody! Quick and short question: What is better when you want to rank for your your brandname? www.jobsbrandname.com or www.brandnamejobs.com I think for SEO it's better to use the last one but marketing has the wish to use the first one. Thanks for your responce!
Technical SEO | | ltom0 -
Keyword and URL
I have a client who has a popular name (like 'Joe Smith'). His blog URL has only his first name and the name of his company in it, like joe.company.com. His blog doesn't rank well at all in the first 3-4 Google SERPs. I was thinking of advising him to change the URL of his blog to joesmith.company.com, and having his webmaster do 301 redirects from the old URL to the new one. Do you think this is a good strategy, or would you recommend something else? I realize ranking isn't just about the URL, it's about links, etc. But I think making his URL more specific to his name could help. Any advice greatly appreciated! Jim
Technical SEO | | JamesAMartin0 -
Should me URLs be uppercase or lowercase
I'm in the middle of doing a bunch of 301 redirects for me site. Should I make them Lowercase, uppercase, or does it matter? Also, do I want to be using hyphens (-), or underscores (_)? Any other tips? EX: http://www.stupid.com/golf-slippers.html OR http://www.stupid.com/Golf-Slippers.html
Technical SEO | | JustinStupid0 -
Mobile Domain \ URL Structure SEO questions
Hi We are making a mobile site for our site for one of our partner sites and I would like to know which one of the following URL structure you recommand as far as SEO concerned? mobile.mywebsite.com or mywebsite.mobi Also, should I worry about duplicated content on my mobile site?
Technical SEO | | CookingCom0