Keyword Domain URL structure
-
Hello all,
We have a domain with one of the primary keyword within the domain itself (audisite) and reading through some of the topics, having a keyword within the domain itself seems to be not as significant as we had assumed. We currently have a URL strucuture ( http://audisite.co.uk/new-audi/a4 ) which we were thinking of modifying to something like audisite.co.uk/a4 based on the premise that the 'audi' keyword is already in the domain itself.
Also in terms of URL optimization, which of these will be the most effective URL (if the content is exactly the same). Or is my whole approach incorrect to URL optimization fundamentally incorrect?
- /a4
- /new-audi-a4
- /new/audi-a4
- /new-audi/a4
- /new/audi/a4
I will be very grateful for any advice/suggestions/pointers. Thank you very much for your time.
-
No problem.
Glad to help.
Mike
-
Thank you very much Mike for taking the time to reply. I will take in your suggestion when redoing the structure. Much more clearer now.
-
No problem.
So, having keywords in your URL is really helpful for SEO, but don't over complicate it and don't stress about it
In the small amount of testing I have done, you probably wouldn't see a huge ranking difference between the different naming conventions as long as they are at the same level. Meaning you'd "probably" have the same ranking for /new-audi/a4 as you would /new/audi-a4.
To answer your question, a flat architecture is awesome to have from a crawler standpoint and from a user standpoint. If you have a landing page /new-audi and a "product" page /new-audi-a4 at the same level, that is great. It is easier for people to remember and share on social vs having it go down another level.
The only time this flat architecture can become a headache is when you have a ton of pages and trying to remember where everything is from a site structure point of view when you are managing things.
Hope this helps.
Mike
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you once more for taking the time to reply.
Everything you said made sense. Just to clarify if make sure I am getting this correctly I will ask one final question. If I have the landing pages /new-audi and /used-audi with links (or a dynmically generated product listing in the case of used-audi) to the specific model, it would make sense to have a url strucuture like /new-audi/a4 or /used-audi/a4?
But will it be any more advantageous to have the URL as /new-audi-a4, /used-audi-a4 despite having the landing page that points to these models or do you think despite the deeper level in /new-audi/a4 won't be much of an issue as there would be a landing page pointing to each of the new audi model.
I hope I did not confuse you more. And thank you very much for your time. Very grateful for it.
-
Sure thing.
Yes. I was referring to the URL in the second portion of my original comment.
Right on. I wasn't completely following the reasoning behind "new", so that is why I suggested just /a4 or /audi-a4. After you explanation that you are having new and used, that makes perfect sense.
You are correct. It is another level deep and that makes it appear as though it does not hold as much importance from a structural point of view - that is why I would suggest it being /new-audi-a4 vs /new-audi/a4; however, it all depends on your site structure (although URL naming doesn't have to follow site structure). If you have /new-audi landing page, which has links to different cars, a4, a5, etc. then it would make sense to use the /new-audi and /used-audi format. If your site does not use that type of structure, it may seem confusing to someone who is just looking at the URL.
Does that make sense?
Mike
-
Hi Mike,
Thank you for the reply. Shorter URLs do make sense.
The second part I got a little confused with. You said "so I would feel comfortable using the product name "audi" at the page product level"; I presume you mean this is in the URL as the whole second paragraph seems like the reason for why I should be doing it?
My only concern of not going with either /a4 or /audi-a4 is because the domain will have both new and used audi. But the option /new-audi-a4 does seem like the best way forward here as I could simply change the new to used.
And if I may, is there anything concrete to use /new-audi-a4 rather than /new-audi/a4. The only reason I can see is that the second URL strucuture would mean the a4 is one level deeper than the first URL structure.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
-
Hi Niraj,
Shorter, higher level URLs "typically" perform better in the SERPs.
I personally would probably do either /a4 or /new-audi-a4 or even /audi-a4.
There is a difference between your domain (brand) and the page (product), so I would feel comfortable using the product name "audi" at the page product level, even though it is already in the domain - if that makes sense.
Hope this helps.
Mike
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 need how many link for a keyword
i seo keyword "sim số đẹp", my competitor have 4k ref domain for this keyword. So Do I need more than 4k ref domain with anchortext "sim số đẹp"? Please help me. Thanks.
Link Building | | simthanglongdotvn0 -
Why would backlinks trump content and keywords / DA?
While analyzing competition, I frequently see backlinks being the biggest factor at deciding rank for keywords, while content and keyword page grading can say great things, it always comes down to backlinks it seems. Even our DA is better or equal, Why would this be?
Link Building | | Deacyde0 -
Domain Authority and Fixing the site
Ok, so let's say I have a page on my site that says "Find a Personal Injury Lawyer Boston" Obviously that is very competitive and it is hard to get links for. However somewhere else on my site I have an article that says "10 mistakes to avoid when making a will." In theory, if I can get links to the "Making a Will Page", that increases the domain authority of my entire site, and boosts the likelihood of ranking for "Find a personal injury lawyer Boston." Is this correct? Let me know and thanks for your help!
Link Building | | RafeTLouis0 -
What is Followed Linking Root Domains ?
Is it to just have different URLs pointing to my site? I understand that if 1 site posts 5 of my URLs, it only counts as 1. I am just not understanding how I increase this number if link building is now frowned up. Thoughts?
Link Building | | tiffany11030 -
Date specific keywords, what to do for following year?!?
Hi, Lets say I have a page with the keyword 'film releases 2012', I rank the term and it picks up some back links and social signals. The year ends and search begins for 'film releases 2013'. Do I: 1. Create a new page targeting 'film releases 2013' and redirect the old page to the new one. 2. Just have one page with the url .co.uk/film-releases/ and when the year ends for 2012 just change the 2012 to 2013 (title, h1 tags etc). I'm 99% sure number 2 is the best option but the only negative is the url does not contain the year. I could just have the 1 page with the date in the url and when it enters the new year change the url to contain the new date but that would break any backlinks, so I could redirect anyone trying to get to the old url to the new one which should pass the PR across. But im guessing I would lose some PR in the process so maybe not having the date in the url would not effect SEO to much so rolling with number 2 is best bet. Cheers
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Search volume on google.no vs google.com for keyword
Anyone know if there is a way to find out search volume for a keyword on google.com vd for instance in our case google.no ? The reason i am asking is that i am ranking 17 on google.com vs 1 on google.no . how do i go about to increase .com ranking ?
Link Building | | danlae0 -
Keyword Strategy for Very Large Website Launch
My friend and I are launching a website used to track alcoholic beverages. It has over 115k pages, three tier site structure. I am curious about the keyword strategy for the homepage. I know I will get a lot of long tail search traffic for drink names and how to mix drinks. Do I need a Keyword Strategy for my homepage with so many internal pages? Its a new brand we created, not a keyword domain. We would like to rank for how to mix drinks, etc... However with the number of pages we already have a lot of internal link juice. Where should link building be focused?
Link Building | | getbigyadig0 -
SEO Tool to search mass URLs (for link qualification)
Hi, I have been using OSE and have a compiled list of backlinks to my competitor's sites. The next step would be to go through and qualify all of these links for a link opportunities for my client's site. To save me a lot of time, I require a tool that will search all of these pages (say 1000) for specific keywords in tags or body content. A search query might be - site:(URL list) intitle:directory site:(URL list) "add site" etc Any ideas would be great. Thanks.
Link Building | | DigitalLeaf0