Categories and URL Structure - When to add a new directory?
-
I've been wondering this for quite awhile so I figured I should just ask.
Suppose my website has 5 categories and the url structure looks like:
do I also want to create a landing page for the above categories at the same URL depth as the homepage of the site?
OR what about:
www.mysite.com/category1/index.html
Which is a better way to do this?
Also, if your site began as fairly small and your 5 categories were your only other pages other than index, about, and contact pages (meaning you really had no reason to create separate directories), then as time passes, you decide to add 3 subcategory pages that would fit into a page: www.mysite.com/category1.html
would you add a folder with he same name as the html page, and then rename the html file as index.html and place it into the new folder?
-
I'm sorry, there was a typo in my question.. When I used the term "subdirectory" what I was actually referring to was a product page.
So, essentially what you are saying is that for my lowest URL depth where the website homepage is found, the only files there are going to be index?
-
Hi Bradley,
let's start with the first doubt... when you talk about a "landing page for the above categories", do you mean one landing for all 5 categories, or one landing page per category.
In the second case, the same /category1/, /category2/... should be treated and considered as landing pages.
In the first case, instead, your idea of having the landing on the same level of the architecture as the home page is formally correct, but - IMHO - it would be poor UX solution, because your are obliging the users to pass trough one possibly useless click in order to arrive to the category they are interested.
I also did not really understand your second question, but normally if you have to start adding subdirectories, than the URL of a subdirectory should be something like this:
www.domain.com/directory1/subdirectory2
as saying, you will add a second level of deepness in your navigational architecture.
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
-
Structuring navigation for maximum effect
Hi, I am working with a client (in the property niche) who has 200+ links on each page of their site mainly due to an extensive navigation menu. They have good domain authority (although some competitors have a lot better) and some excellent links from some fantastic domains but the keywords just aren’t moving. (Sidenote: most links point to the home page with some going to property detail pages not location pages which is where I’d like people to be landing). I am reviewing the site structure and other technical aspects and have some questions regarding how the navigation is structured. Firstly is 200+ links an ok number to have? Everything I read points to 100 being a magic number to aim for. Secondly, the site navigation menu contains a list of locations. The first tier being country, the second tier drops down to list the regions within that country, then a third tier drop down appears to list the towns and cities in those regions. So from any page in the site you can drill down to town/city locations. (Sidenote: I have run Hotjar on the site which shows most people are using the search facility not the navigation menu to search) Is this style of navigation ok or does it dilute the link authority/pagerank/juice being past to each page? Would a better option be to have the first and second tier in the drop down then the third level town navigation to appear in the sidebar at page level in the appropriate sections? What effect would such a change have on rankings?
On-Page Optimization | | caravan0 -
With 301 Redirects Does Changing URLs Matter?
We are redesigning our website in order to give it a more modern visual look. For the most part all the content will remain the same. Our old site is hosted on .asp so all of our current URLs look something like this: www.example.com/products/food.asp We plan on using 301 redirects in order to update every URL and remove the .asp. Since we are going to be doing 301 redirects for every existing URL anyways, does it matter from an SEO and ranking standpoint, if we also change the content and structure of the URL? For example, would we see a ranking impact if we were to change the above example URL to www.example.com/food? Obviously we want to try to retain as much link juice and ranking factors as possible during this redesign. Another issue we are seeing is with the image file names of our existing website images. We are moving to a new CMS platform (WordPress) that automatically saves images using a folder path similar to this: wp-uploads/2015-08/food. Will that change affect our SEO or ranking at all? When Google crawls an image does it care about the full path? Any insight would be much appreciated! 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | BlueLinkERP0 -
How to add meta descriptions in WordPress
Hello, I have a WordPress website in which the front page is built entirely with text widgets. How would I add key words and meta descriptions. Yoast does not give an option for this and it seems WordPress does not support meta descriptions. Anyone have ideas? The website is championfitprogram.com
On-Page Optimization | | donsilvernail0 -
Site Structure. Which is better?
Ideally, which model is better for site structure: 1. Homepage -> Categories -> Individual Pages (See example here http://www.wordtracker.com/attachments/bead-site-structure.gif) OR 2. Homepage -> Categories -> Sub-categories -> Indicidual Pages In the 2nd model, are the individual pages too far away from the homepage?
On-Page Optimization | | brianflannery0 -
Designing path structure - readability or keyword density
We are looking at redesigning our URL structure to accommodate our expansion. This gives us a chance to change the path, but we have found conflicting advice on readability vs. keyword density. These are our three options. mywebsite.com/s/birmingham/restaurants (Keep it short so that the keywords dominate the path) or mywebsite.com/search/birmingham/restaurants (Accurately describe the content on the page) or mywebsite.com/top/birmingham/restaurants (Be a bit spammy and include a word often associated with our inbound searches) Does anyone have any experience on what works best?
On-Page Optimization | | HireSpace0 -
Do Parent Categories Hurt SEO?
I have parent categories and subcategories. Will it be harder for the subcategories to rank well because they have a parent category? The URL is longer, for one. I am just wondering if I should not have parent categories. I have one category page doing really well and I am trying to boost the others (most of which are subcategories) and this is a concern for me. Thanks! Edit: I also have a category that has 2 parent categories. I want it automatically in those 2 categories and one of its own. By itself it is very important keyword. Is this ok or should I have it be a parent category?
On-Page Optimization | | 2bloggers0 -
404 crawl errors with all url+domain
We have 187 crawl 404 errors. All urls on web make a 404 error that this http://www.domain.com/[.....]l/www.domain.com all errors added to the url, the url domain I put an example gestoriabarcelona.com/www.gestoriabarcelona.com
On-Page Optimization | | promonet
gestoriabarcelona.com/tarifas/www.gestoriabarcelona.com
gestoriabarcelona.com/category/noticias/page/7/www.gestoriabarcelona.com
gestoriabarcelona.com/2012/08/amortizacion-de-unaconstruccion/
www.gestoriabarcelona.com
[..] I don't know where can i find to solve errors Anyone can help me? Thanks0 -
Tag-URLs in Magento
Hello, I have got a problem concerning Tag-URLs in Magento (the URLs mentioned are just fictitious 😞 At the moment, they look something like this: (1) http://store.com/tag/product/list/tagId/1/ ... so these URLs are not search engine friendly at all. Using a Magento extension you could transform them in speaking URLs: (2) http://store.com/tag/digital-cameras What would you do if you sold, say, digital cameras and your online shop ranked high for the keyword "digital camera" with URL No. 1 (not search engine friendly). Would you transform (1) in (2) and 301 all non speaking URLs? But would you keep the high ranking for "digital camera" when 301 to URL No. (2). But, what I'm most concerned of is : There is actually a landing page (category page) for the keyword "digital camera" : http://store.com/digital-cameras. Shouldn't the last URL rank high for "digital camera"? (instead of the tag URLs). But given the situation above, does it make sense now to 301 the tag URL to the category page? I would perhaps lose my good ranking, wouldn't I? Thanks a lot for your help! Martin
On-Page Optimization | | SmartyMarty810