Directory site with an URL structure dilemma
-
Hello,
We run a site, which lists local businesses and tag them by their nature of business (similar to Yelp).
Our problem is, that our category and sub-category(i.e.: www.example.com/budapest/restaurant or www.example.com/budapest/cars/spare-parts) pages are extremely weak, and get almost no traffic, but most of the traffic (95+ percent) goes for the actual business pages.
While this might be a completely normal thing, I still would like to strengthen our category (listing) pages as well, as these should be the ones targeted by some of general keywords, like ‘restaurant’ or ‘restaurant+budapest’.
One of the issues I have identified as a possible problem, that we do not have a clear hierarchy within the site, so while the main category pages are linked from the homepage (and the sub-categories from here), there is no bottom-up linking from the business pages back to the category pages, as the business page URLs look like this: www.example.com/business/onyx-restaurant-budapest.
I think, that the good site- and url structure for the above would be like this: www.example.com/budapest/restaurant/hungarian/onyx-restaurant.
My only issue is, perhaps not with the restaurants but with others, that some of the businesses have multiple tags, so they can be tagged i.e. as car saloon, auto repair and spare parts at the same time. Sometimes, they even have 5+ tags on them.
My idea is, that I will try to identify a primary tag for all the businesses (we maintain 99 percent of them right now), and the rest of their tags would be secondary ones. I would then use canonicalization and mark the page with the primary tag in the url as the preferred one for that specific content.
With this scenario, I might have several URLs with the same content (complete duplicates), but they would point to one page only as the preferred one, while our visitors could still reach the businesses in any preferred ways, so either by looking for car saloons, auto-repair or spare parts.
This way, we could also have breadcrumbs on all the pages, which now we miss completely.
Can this be a feasible scenario? Might it have a side-effect? Any hints on how to do it a better way?
Many thanks,
Andras
-
You're welcome. As you might have guessed, I've tackled this problem myself a few times!!
-
Ok, this is something I can take as homework.
Thank you for having checked my issue in details.
-
It's painful, but that is your answer:
Q. Why isn't google ranking these pages better?
A. Because they are not unique or usefulGoogle can be annoyingly smart like that. The cheapest/easiest fix is probably to have a paragraph added to the top of each page. So your /budapest/jatekbolt page would have a paragraph about the wonderful choice of restaurants available in budapest and it's rich culinary heritage. (queue affordably copywriter to help keep them different).
You could also consider adding a field to your business database for "recommended snippet" which if filled in highlights that listing and gives a more in depth amount of information. You could the have someone look at reviews for the listings in key categories, pick our favourites and write a fresh description to those featured businesses.
The result of that will be a page that has more unique content and is in fact slightly more useful, That puts you in good standing for improved rankings.
-
Your assumption is correct about the snippets.
We either use part of the business description or some of the actual review wording on the category pages.
While I understand the importance of your suggestion, that is all I have about these businesses, and I add these snippets to the lists, so that I could increase CTR through previews.
Yes, there is no original content, basically just 'copied contents' from several pages, so the category page is total duplicate to nothing, but not genuine either.
Thank you again for your help.
-
Actually, I would say that uniqueness probably is an issue. keep in mind that I don't speak Hungarian,but it looks like everything on that page is a snippet from the sub pages. ie none of the text on that page is unique to that page. Is that correct?
Adding unique content at category level, even just a few lines of natural text that include the main keywords can make quite a difference. I've found it much harder to rank category pages that do not have that.
That would probably be my first job. Even if you just did it on a sample set of pages and monitored those for any improvement. Making them useful (and therefore attracting links) might be harder.
-
My guess would be that the bigger problem is not the URL structure, but the content on those category pages. The change you propose to the URL structure is good in terms of helping the business listing pages and in creating a logical hierarchy, but it isn't going to help those category pages.
I'd start with looking at:
- Content of the category pages : Do they have unique content. Is that content useful in it's own terms?
- Internal linking of category pages : Are you linking back up to the categories from the businesses, are you linking down to them ok. Are those links close to the top of the site hierarchy?
- External links: Are you getting links from other websites to those pages (easier if they are useful)
- On page optimisation: Are the category pages themselves well optimised
I'd question whether there is any benefit at all to your category pages in changing the URL structure of your business pages. However if there is some it's impact will pale to nothing compared to the above.
-
Thank you for your reply.
Your suggestion matches the actual way of how we handle the issue right now.
I have thought, that we might be able to improve the process a bit, but I am happy, that there is no need to change the way of how it works now.
-
Ok, when the question starts it sounds real easy to me but down the question it become too complex that it makes me confused on how to answer...
For Business listing I think it’s best to go with http://www.example.com/biz/my-business-name
For category pages the URL should be like http://www.example.com/oh/car-parts (oh represents the city name while car parts in the category)
All categories should come in all states for example if a person in California looks for car parts the url should be http://www.example.com/ca/car-parts
Reason why you should adopt this structure...
- Duplicate content issue will be eliminated
- URLs will not be so long so there will be no indexing issues
- Even if a business selects the multiple categories the content will not be duplicated.
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
-
Should I use an acronym in my URL?
I know that Google understands various acronyms. Example: If I search for CRM System, it knows i'm searching for a customer relationship management system. However, will it recognize less known acronyms? I have a page geared specifically for SAP data archiving for human capital management systems. For those in the industry, they simply call it HCM. Here is how I view my options: Option #1: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/human-capital-management Option #2: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm Option #3: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm-human-capital-management With option #3, i'm capturing the acronym AND the full phrase. This doesn't make my URL overly long either. Of course, in my content i'll reference both. What does everyone else think about the URL? -Alex
On-Page Optimization | | MeasureEverything0 -
Url structure
Hi Guys, Wondering what is better for url structure say for example a key word "slow cooker" example.com/slowcooker or example.com/slow-cooker ? Thank you 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | GetApp0 -
Similar URLs
I'm making a site of LSAT explanations. The content is very meaningful for LSAT students. I'm less sure the urls and headings are meaningful for Google. I'll give you an example. Here are two URLs and heading for two separate pages: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-1/q-10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10 http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10/ - LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning II, Q10 There are two logical reasoning sections on LSAT 69. For the first url is for question 10 from section 1, the second URL is for question 10 from the second LR section. I noticed that google.com only displays 23 urls when I search "site:http://lsathacks.com". A couple of days ago it displayed over 120 (i.e. the entire site). 1. Am I hurting myself with this structure, even if it makes sense for users? 2. What could I do to avoid it? I'll eventually have thousands of pages of explanations. They'll all be very similar in terms of how I would categorize them to a human, e.g. "LSAT 52, logic games question 12" I should note that the content of each page is very different. But url, title and h1 is similar. Edit: I could, for example, add a random keyword to differentiate titles and urls (but not H1). For example: http://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-69/logical-reasoning-2/q10-car-efficiency/ LSAT 69, Logical Reasoning I, Q 10, Car efficiency But the url is already fairly long as is. Would that be a good idea?
On-Page Optimization | | graemeblake0 -
Document structure (Headings)
Hi, Is it a "no go" to put text before H1 on a site? We got some courses where the user puts in the name of the course in a H1 Then we make a H2 with the name of the course and keywords (6 weeks course in XXX) So on the page it appears H1 "XXX Course" H2 "6 weeks course in XXX" **Description of the course ** Would it be logical to remove the H1 from the top and put it where the H2 currently is, leaving the top text with no heading?
On-Page Optimization | | Mickelp0 -
New Url Structure
Hey Guys We are working on a new site and in order to implement some of the new functions we need to restructure our url's , Will redirect everything correctly but I was looking for advice on the structure we need the word product / category subfolder for speed but would there be any benefit making them shorter ? what would you guys advise ? Category Current http://www.freestylextreme.com/uk/Home/Brands/DC-Shoe-Co-/default.aspx **New ** freestylextreme.com/uk/category/dc-shoe-co Product Current http://www.freestylextreme.com/uk/Home/Brands/DC-Shoe-Co-/Mens-DC-Shoe-Co-T-shirts/DC-Black-Unwind-T-Shirt---.aspx New freestylextreme.com/uk/product/dc-black-unwind-t-shirt
On-Page Optimization | | elbeno0 -
If you were working on a wine site would you include the wine year in the URL?
I've come across a case where I'm asking myself what the best direction would be to go and while there is no right direction I would like to here some feedback from others. I'm working with some great content pages all about wine. As you probably know the difference between a 07 wine and a 95 is vastly different and up to this point I'm using the full year in the url much like this: grapesinyourtoesexample.com/2007-cellar-pod-viognier-adelaide-hills/. What I'm worried about is my use of the year in the URL. I feel it's very important for it to be used in the page title and on page but I'm concerned that it might be setting me back with my use of it in the url. My concern is that search engines might be interpretting it as a datestamp rather than as a informational piece of data describing the asset. Looking at my competitors, my content is one of the only sites using the year and in most searches for various wines my content is in the second half of the SERPs. If you were creating this content would you use the year? If you were working with current content would you drop the year across all of the site and implement to necessary redirects? Just to be clear this is a client related project so my use of "my site|my content" refers to the client's content.
On-Page Optimization | | DotCar0 -
What is wrong with this site
Hello, I need advice regarding design ( current design as well as any changes ) and seo advice as to what we should do to promote the site. The site in question is - Allkindofessays.com Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | seoug_20050 -
Which method should I use for my URL structure?
I have an existing site that is currently utilizing a structure that is like this: http://www.mysite.com/Ohio/City-of-Cleveland-PRODUCT-NAME Should I restructure it like: http://www.mysite.com/Ohio/City-of-Cleveland/Product-Name We are doing very well with very specific searches already but are sometimes coming in 2nd and 3rd place. For example: If I search for CLEVELAND PRODUCT NAME I always come up in the top three and about 60% of the time I am #1. I want to make it better. We have only launched in 4 states but plan on launching an additional 4 states over the next few weeks and I want to make sure we are building things properly. Any feedback would be wonderful. As usual, thanks everyone!! -Alex
On-Page Optimization | | dbuckles0