Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO

[Awaraman]

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

[Awaraman]

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?

[jesse-landry]

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!

[Awaraman]

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):

namegroup.com

name-group.com

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

[MoosaHemani]

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!

[Chris.Menke]

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.

• http://moz.com/learn/seo/url
• http://moz.com/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls

[jesse-landry]

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.