Tips on URL structure for a site re-design
-
Wanted to know what you would do with regards to urls – in an ideal world how would you structure them?
Keen to know as me and dave are soon to have a meeting about this and were wondering about changing them from the current – http://www.looking4parking.com/airport/gatwick to something like - www.looking4parking.com/gatwick-airport-parking
We will soon have pages for the specific parking types that will be a lot more engaging to users with some really useful content on benefits, features, how a certain type of parking works, images, video etc.
Currently going to a type of parking, such as meet and greet just brings up a dropdown modal – I was thinking of having the url structure looking like this –
www.looking4parking.com/gatwick-airport-meet-and-greet-parking
www.looking4parking.com/gatwick-airport-on-site-parking
www.looking4parking.com/gatwick-airport-park-and-ride
We will then have specific pages for each parking product – in which this product will have unique content built around it – each will have an overview of the product, benefits, features, reviews, images, directions to the car park, find your route and eventually a video on each product
So for example we currently have the product “Jet Parks 2” at Manchester airport – the current url is - http://www.looking4parking.com/airport/manchester/park-and-ride/jetparks-2
I would like to change this now we have the opportunity to refresh the whole system, to something along the lines of **domain/location/product title - **www.looking4parking.com/manchester-airport-parking/jetparks-2 or as we have some similar products at certain airports (mainly where the airport has multiple terminals) we would just change it to the following - www.looking4parking.com/manchester-airport-parking/jetparks-3
What are peoples thoughts/opinions on the above?
-
Hi Kurt,
I agree, just wanted to get some feedback before i proposed it to the development team.
Always good to go in that room with some back-up knowledge.
Thanks,
Ryan
-
Hi Ruben,
I have been doing some digging and found similar myself.
I guess as long as the page content isn't stuffed full of keywords and is just good quality content there isn't much to be worrying about.
Thanks for your input.
Ryan
-
Ryan,
I don't think you will have a keyword stuffing problem either, and here's why: http://www.shoes.com/en-US/Womens///Athletic+Shoes~Walking/_/Products.aspx I did a super fast check and typed in shoes. shoes.com was number 1. They have shoes twice. Granted, this is not scientific, but I bet if you did some digging, you'd see several companies with high rankings that have the keyword twice.
Best,
Ruben
-
Ryan,
I don't think having parking in the domain and the page filename is going to get you trouble for keyword stuffing or any other over-optimization penalty...assuming you don't over-optimize the pages when you create the content
BTW - Great answer Peter!
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
Hi Peter,
Thanks for the response, it is a rather large discussion point, i have a problem stopping when i start writing.
I agree with your points, and don't worry, not many people know what/who jetparks are? (large airport parking company).
Was a little worried about keyword stuffing with us having parking in our domain name, and then using it a second time when describing "gatwick-airport-parking", and also general over-optimisation penalties.
Thanks for your advice, good to hear it is heading in the right direction.
-
Hi Ryan
There's a lot going on here, but from the sound of it, I think you are going the right way with it by not just focussing on the URLs (which are important) but backing it up with good content using various media.
I think the structure you have for the URLs is good too as domain->location->product. All I would say is to be careful on the product part of the URL (alo relating to your page Title tags) that it is a term that people understand and would use. For example, I have no idea what a Jet Park is, but it is possible I have been living in a cave on this and it is an understood term by your target market.
As I said in the paragraph above, make sure your page Title tags are correctly optimised as that is probably more important than the page URLs.
Finally, if you changing URLs, don't forget to create a set of 301 permanent redirects or add to the set for each page address you change and make live. You will get a small loss in current SEO value by using the 301 redirects, but by better optimising which is your reason for doing this you will gain back the ground and more.
I hope that helps,
Peter
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
-
Change of URL + SEO Impact
We recently changed the URLs from our site http://www.website.com (old)
On-Page Optimization | | ederdesign
https://website.com/us/en/ (new) Our ranking is plummeting every since and I wonder if the new URL had something to do with it. Do you know if that change, could have impacted the ranking?0 -
Why ranks my site so bad?
hello together, i think, that you read questions like this very often, but i hope someone has some good ideas for me. https://goo.gl/3iOmcqy with the keyword "sophos sg 210" we rank very bad. But i don't know why 😞 We have trust elements, a very good "avergage time on page" unique content... But i don't know, what can we make better 😞 Thx you so much
On-Page Optimization | | enbitcon0 -
Value of URL Changes
Hi Guys, I have a question. Each product listed on my webstie has product number like /product.php?id=3624. After I spent many hours with MOZ, I figured out that this approach is wrong and I should use the product name as URL to achieve better SEO performance. Now I am planing to change the URL generating algoritm but should I do it for existing products. Some of them have already been linked to external websites. I am thinking to create mirror URLs but this may cause rather damage on my website. Do you know what is the right answer? Best, Tony
On-Page Optimization | | Threeding.com0 -
Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?
Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though. What would be the best practice here? 1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website? 2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article 3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain. Thanks for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
Competitor Out Ranks My Site
Hi This is my first question on SEOMoz and I am confused how a competitor can out rank me for a local search term SEO Tamworth. I have a higher Page Authority, Domain Authority, Number of links etc.. Would this be down to the quality of the links to my site or could it be down to the structure. I score an A for SEO on the on page analysis. Regards James
On-Page Optimization | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
Question Regarding Site Structure
I have a quick question regarding site structure that I hope some of you guys could share your opinion on. I watched a white board friday from Rand a little while back where he explains that you need to try and make the site structure as flat as possible. He was saying try having no more that 3 links from the home page to get to the desired location. My question is this. I am looking at a site that has a pretty complex structure that I am trying to clear up as much as possible without making any of there rankings suffer. So they have www.domian.com/general-category/district/town/ and sometimes www.domian.com/general-category/district/town/item-specifics Now i know it is not good as it is, but they are dubious about changing too much as they have some serious traffic coming to the site. But, my question is that all the pages can be found from the home page through the menus/sub-menus. But do these count as a direct link from the home page. Also a problem is that because of this mozbot has detected that there are too many links from the home page and suggested that it should be below 200. But should I make these menu links no index or no follow. Obviously, by doing this, if the link does count as direct from the home page it wont after doing this. Thanks Jenson
On-Page Optimization | | jensonseo0 -
Working on this site...
and wondering what is wrong in terms of on page SEO (basically just want some feedback on tips/changes to make) http://www.stevenholmesstudio.com/ I'm assuming that the title shouldn't be just the img file name..any suggestions for what it should be?
On-Page Optimization | | callmeed0 -
Site Wide Link
I have just run up the link explorer on my site and discovered that every page home page link points back with the text home - I assume this is bad in terms of SEO , my site name is ccie and I assumed that it put the site wide link of ccie to the entire site, however it seems to be the breadcrumb default of home which is doing it/. www.rogerperkin.co.uk/ccie Should I be looking to change this so my top keyword points back from each page to the home page. I am running wordpress and assumed the site name was the home link on all pages. Can anyone advise the best practice? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | rogerp0070