Site´s Architecture - Categories . What´s the best in my case?

[facupp1]

My Dear friends of MOZ, I´ve got you a case that has been driving me crazy for 2 weeks, Im doing an SEO audit for big brand that sells electronics.

Since they sell all kind of electronics, and are very popular the site is quite big and has several categories.

Now...Im working particularly in a kind of micro-site that sells two kind of products that are very similar but not the same. Lets say in this site they are selling super-light-weight-Laptops and tablets, so if you look the site its a Laptop/Tablet site. But the site is not under a laptop/tablet directory, some pages are under laptop and others in Tablet directory .

For example : Home page URL: /light-laptops/home.asp ; Products general page page URL is light-pads/products.asp ; and each single product page is under laptops or pads according the type of product.

From my point of view, they should create a new directory called /light-laptops-pads/ and single directories for products, and case studies, etc.. Since they want to show both products together when you click in products (off course they will be creating sub-directories for the two types of products).

At the begining I thought they were really mistaken, but now that I see that all light-pad content is in one folder  and light-laptops content is in another, and the site jumps from one category to the other I am a little bit confused. PLEASE HELP ME

PD: I want to make clear that general categories like products, case studies , contact us, solutions pages are in some cases under /light-pad/ directory and in other cases under /light-laptops / directory

PLEASE PARDON MY ENGLISH!

[customerparadigm.com]

Pablo -

Yes, it would be better to have all of your domain authority under one main domain name, instead of spreading it thinly using subdomains.

Thanks,

-- Jeff

[facupp1]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks a lot for your answers, I have read also the answers to the other threads you referred me.

I dont want to abuse from your time and kindnes, but I ve got one more question. The idea of creating a subdomain started circuling my mind, though Im not sure about this universe.

Like Vice and Mic I bring two cases to the table, but both are using subdomains in this case. www.mercadolibre.com  (latinamerican Amazon) and sony.com .

Sony uses store.com for all their products listing, support.sony for support and sony.com for main navigation pages.

Mercado Libre uses listado.mercadolibre.com for most of their products and autos(cars).mercadolibre.com or ropa.mercadolibre.com for really important categories like clothes and cars ( that would bring Mercado Libre more revenue than other categories, I think is where they are more focused in).

Now I always thought the same way Matt Cutts explains in his article about subdomain, it should be made for keywords that aren´t too related to domain´s keywords. I remember creating an  insurance subdomain for a brokerage firm.

The domain authority of the domain Im working in is already 92 I understand SEO efforts will only have repercussions in subdomain, but as I said domain authority is already 92 . On the other hand I should add another folder, and the site structure is already a little bit long, while using a subdomain will save me using at least one folder less.

Hope you can give me a hand with this.

Best Wishes.

Pablo

[customerparadigm.com]

So, if this is a huge brand name with a high domain authority...  it honestly won't matter as much how their category and URL structure is set up.

However, if they are using two different directories with specific information about each product, this would be fine as well.  I think that having a site with two big / strong categories, but no general categories should be okay, especially if their DA is really strong.

Hope this helps!

• Jeff

[facupp1]

Thanks a lot Jeff, really helpful information.

This brand is also a manufacturer, as big as Sony. I understand your way you would proceed with this and I have the same approach, but if we follow an intuitive architecture of categories, the one they are using is not that wrong, altough not all the categories correspond to the same microsite .

Let me be a little bit more graphical :

/ Business /directory

/light-laptops/ displayed in microsite A

/light-tablets/ displayed in microsite A

/projectors/ displayed in microsite b

/4k-displays/displayed in microsite c

I dont really know how wrong its what they are doing. If tomorrow they come up with more "light tablets" info they will host it in /light-laptops/ I know this is not classic SEO, but do you think this structure would affect rankings?

Questions:

Yes, they don t have one directory including both products at the same time, but they have two different directories with Specific info about each product. (also including products,contact and home page since there is no general directory for both categories) You think this wouldn t be a right way to divide categories?

Do you think having a site like they have with two big and strong categories and no general categories would affect SEO?

Thanks a lot!

[customerparadigm.com]

Microsites can either be a separate domain name (i.e. www.domain-light-tablet-laptops.com) or a subdirectory off of your existing domain (i.e. www.domain.com/light-tablet/)

It sounds like you're going with the subdirectory option for the microsite. I think that this will be helpful, and add more SEO value to the microsite. Here's a link to a post on subdomains vs. subdirectories:
http://moz.com/community/q/revisited-the-subdomain-vs-subdirectory-question

My recommendation, if you are to use a sub-directory, would be to have one top level, such as:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/

If you don't need to have the home.asp, that might be better... but that's going to depend on your site and page system settings.

For your categories, you might go with:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/manufacturer/

And for your product, you might go with:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/manufacturer/tablet-XYZ/

For the contact page, I'd go with:
www.domain.com/light-tablets-laptops/contact/

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
-- Jeff