Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO
-
Hi,
I have two questions.
Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords?
Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions.
My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder.
Thanks in advance,
Sam
-
Thanks. One more question: does this also mean that the main page www.example.com/index.php (whether the index.php is shown to the user or not) gets all the same domain authority as the domain itself (www.example.com) as it is the main page?
-
Choose a domain and stick with it, then build pages out from there. Redirect the non-www to the www (if this is what you choose to go with) and forget about the rest... redirect site-wide.
Admittedly I'm simplifying it for two reasons: 1.) I'm not quite sure I get it, this is rather confusing and 2.) it is that simple.
You want a domain and then you want pages and subdirectories targeting your keywords. That's it that's all. I would not build links for the non-www if you are going to redirect for the www. Build links for the domain you settle on.
I'm not sure I'm helping but hope so!
-
Thanks a lot for your comments and advice, now things are starting to get more clear for me. However, I have one more question. I have now completed a detailed level of analysis and I discovered the following.
Our company is having these domains (same structure as in these):
When you go to either of these addresses, it is directed by using 301 to the following URL: http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services (no external linking root domains)
In addition, in the past some part of the link building has been made to http://www.namegroup.com (15 linking root domains), some to http://namegroup.com (1 linking root domain), some to www.name-group.com (6 linking root domains), some to http://namegroup.com/en/main (2 linking root domains). And now all is directed by using 301 to http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services (no external linking root domains). These pages have been the main page at the time these links were created.
It would make the most sense for me to start using www.namegroup.com as the main URL (as this URL has the most linking root domains), and then redirect all the rest here by using 301. And when possible, change the link in the rest of the linking domains to direct to www.namegroup.com
It is quite a big mess now, and I would like to bring some order and consistency here (also use in the future only this form). Why I am wondering whether I should make this, is that since I optimized the title tags and changed the URL for the current one (http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services) some weeks ago, we are ranking very well in Google for some of the most important keywords that we now have in the title tag and URL (we are in first page of SERP, in third and sixth place). I think it is mostly because of optimizing the title tags (but perhaps there is effect of the URL change as well).
Should I still do the change, and start using www.namegroup.com as the main domain, and redirect all others by using 301 there? What do you think?
If I would not change anything, and would keep the current main page URL, should I focus my link building for the URL http://namegroup.com or http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services? Somehow I feel like I would not like to focus the link building for the current URL, in case we decide to change it in the future (it is also quite long) and would prefer to focus link building for http://namegroup.com or www.namegroup.com.
Thank you in advance for your valuable comments.
Best regards
Sam
-
I agree with Chris and Jesse here!
For question one, you should not do this just because you want to have keywords in your URL as Google is more looking in to the quality of content that is available on the site instead of relaying only on keywords based domains and URLs. You can also go with the Jesse’s idea to create an internal page that contains keywords you want!
For question 2 I believe it’s your I will not comment until you asked me to move to sub domain.... sub folders are fine but Google treats sub domains as a separate domain but for sub folder both versions are just fine to me!
Hope this helps!
-
Sam, from an SEO standpoint, there's no need to jump through any hoops in order to get keyword into your URLs as the value that that brings is negligible and still decreasing. On the other hand, it can bring value in the form of click throughs once the result makes near the top of the the search results.
As far as the folders and URLs go, a URL that shows the directory (folder) but no page name is simply the default page for that directory. Just as the /index.php isn't usually shown in the URL for a domiain's homepage (the default page for the domain), the /index.php is often not shown in the URL for the default page in a directory.
-
Question 1: No! Why not just create the internal page and have it target the specific keyword? Your homepage is your brand, not a product/service page. Those are internal. They will rank for whatever you are targeting (if your SEO campaign is strong). Why are you worried about what your homepage ranks for?
Short answer: No. Make internal product/service pages targeting specific keywords and do not redirect your home page.
Question 2: Huh? Those two examples seemed exactly the same to me. Are you asking why some pages will show a sub directory and some pages will show the html page in the URL? If so, it's all in your structure. It doesn't really matter which way you wanna do it but having multiple directories may give you the opportunity to attach keyword targets such as "example.com/services/stuff-i-do.html" as opposed to "example.com/stuff-i-do.html"
The former example will bring the word "services" into your string.. IF you are trying to get your page to just read "example.com/services" then just create that directory and drop an index page in.
Hope this answers your questions or at least comes close.
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
-
I am based in the UK. I want to appeal to a UK and US market. One of my keywords is 'generalised' which gets way more traffic in my keyword phrase when spelt with a z and not an s. What do I do?
Hi folks. I am based in the UK. I am about to launch a new blog, and I want to appeal to the UK and US markets. One of my primary keywords is 'generalised', which gets way more traffic (as seen using Moz's keyword tool) in my keyword phrase when spelt with a z and not an s. What do I do? Any guidance would be great. I note this has been discussed before, but seemingly without a conclusion. I would really appreciate any help you can provide.
International SEO | | Nobody16165422281340 -
International SEO Sub folder Structure
Hi Could anyone offer some advice on the best way to structure sub folders on a website that we are launching worldwide. We are a UK based business and currently run a UK site on www.website.com and we are planning on launching into Europe using a sub folder structure. We will use /de, /fr, /es for the new countries that are coming on board but the question is should the UK site url be: www.website.com or www.website.com/uk As have an established web presence in the UK I'm thinking it should remain as www.wewbsite.com but are there any advantages / disadvantages to changing it to .com/uk Many Thanks
International SEO | | SmiffysUK0 -
In the U.S., how can I stop the European version of my site from outranking the U.S. version?
I've got a site with two versions – a U.S. version and a European version. Users are directed to the appropriate version through a landing page that asks where they're located; both sites are on the same domain, except one is .com/us and the other is .com/eu. My issue is that for some keywords, the European version is outranking the U.S. version in Google's U.S. SERPs. Not only that, but when Google displays sitelinks in the U.S. SERPs, it's a combination of pages on the European site and the U.S. site. Does anyone know how I can stop the European site from outranking the U.S. site in the U.S.? Or how I can get Google to only display sitelinks for pages on the U.S. site in the U.S. SERPs? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this topic!
International SEO | | matt-145670 -
Canonical and hreflang mess of international desktop and mobile site versions
Hello, I have an interesting case and I am lost in it. There are two versions of the site: desktop and mobile. And there are also international versions: English and Spanish. I'm stuck at implementation of canonical tags. Currently my setup has the following: English (default) desktop page has these: English Mobile page has these: Spanish Desktop version: Spanish Mobile version: But I somewhat feel that I messed the things... Could you guys point me to what I did wrong and explain how to set it right? Also, if you know URLs of blog posts or articles, where similar case is explained - share with me please.
International SEO | | poiseo0 -
Multilingual Site with 2 Separate domains and hand-translated
I have 2 separate domains: .com & .jp
International SEO | | khi5
I am having a professional translator translate the English written material from .com. However, the .jp will have same pictures and videos that I have on the .com which means alt tags are in English and video titles are in English. I have some dynamic pages where I use Google Translate and those pages I place as "no index follow" to avoid duplicate issues and they are not very important pages for me any way. Question: since I am doing a proper translating - no machines involved - can I leave pages as is or should I include any format of these: ISO language codes
2) www.example/com/” /> Even though hand translated, the translation will probably be 85% similar to that if I used Google Translate. Will that potentially be seen as duplicate content or not at all since I have not used the Google Translate tool? I wonder from which angle Google analyses this. Thank you,0 -
Russian SEO Specialist Needed
Hi All, Looking for a bit of help here. We are quoting for a big SEO project on a Russian website and need high quality Russian link builders to work on building the links to the website. As well as this, we need to have a little look at the on-page content (but that will be more of just straight translation stuff, nothing big). If you're a Russian link builder and could help me here then get in touch. I only want ethical, white-hat and relevant links being built to the website so if that's not what you do, please don't waste my time 🙂 Also, this should really go without saying but I'll mention it anyway... you MUST speak Russian! Look forward to hearing from you. Matt matt@wowinternet.net
International SEO | | MatthewBarby0 -
International Landing Page Strategy
Hello, I'm looking for some insight in an area that I don't have much experience in - hoping the community can help! We are a healthcare staffing company serving clients in the U.S. (www.bartonassociates.com). We are interested in attracting clients in Australia and New Zealand. I'm wondering if anyone as experience with best practices for doing so (both from an SEO and PPC perspective). Would it be best to purchase .au and .nz domains for these landing pages and link back to our US site for more information (or even recreate a modified version of our US site for .au and .nz). My concern here is duplicate content issues, among other things. Or, would it be better to create Australia and New Zealand focused landing pages on our US site and drive PPC there? My concern here is that we would never get organic traffic from Australia and New Zealand to our US site, in light of the competition. Also, the messaging would be a bit mixed if targeting all three countries. Our core term is "locums" and "locum tenens". Greatly appreciate any insight from you guys. Thanks, Jason
International SEO | | ba_seomoz0 -
Multilingual Ecommerce Product Pages Best Practices
Hi Mozzers, We have a marketplace with 20k+ products, most of which are written in English. At the same time we support several different languages. This changes the chrome of the site (nav, footer, help text, buttons, everything we control) but leaves all the products in their original language. This resulted in all kinds of duplicate content (pages, titles, descriptions) being detected by SEOMoz and GWT. After doing some research we implemented the on page rel="alternate" hreflang="x", seeing as our situation almost perfectly matched the first use case listed by Google on this page http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077. This ended up not helping at all. Google still reports duplicate titles and descriptions for thousands of products, months after setting this up. We are thinking about changing to the sitemap implementation rel="alternate" hreflang="X", but are not sure if this will work either. Other options we have considered include noindex or blocks with robots.txt when the product language is not the same as the site language. That way the feature is still open to users while removing the duplicate pages for Google. So I'm asking for input on best practice for getting Google to correctly recognize one product, with 6 different language views of that same product. Can anyone help? Examples: (Site in English, Product in English) http://website.com/products/product-72 (Site in Spanish, Product in English) http://website.com/es/products/product-72 (Site in German, Product in English) http://website.com/de/products/product-72 etc...
International SEO | | sedwards0