URL sequence

[newbert]

Hello,

Does the URL structural sequence matter to SEO optimisation?

For example, users are likely to enter the search term: "Business Analysis Training Courses". Though, in my experience urls typically have a reversed structure: "www.site.com/training/courses/business-analysis".

My question is, would the sequence "www.site.com/business-analysis/training/courses" have any improved value?

Thanks.

[newbert]

Thanks for taking the time to feedback each of you.

My site is 'new' so I am simply trying to glance ahead and set-up in a fashion that accommodates  good SEO practices and future (possible) expansion e.g. additional course topic areas to avoid site wide rewrites/redirects.

From what I gather there isn't much between the two approaches. So I will move forward with: www.site.com/training-courses/business-analysis (so that in future '/project-management' and other areas can be accommodated simply).

This is based on the assumption that the folder/sub-folder structure count as keywords, and not solely the page slug? I also hear from your responses that content is king, and I should not rely on the URL to be the main contributor.

Interestingly, for me, when setting up my first Moz campaign today the word 'course' was not suggested, with other non-critical words that feature far less often being suggested instead.

Again - thanks for your insight, appreciated.

[LeeC]

Hi Martijn,

was thinking that if the site was going to use the short phrase why not also try for the long tail;

i.e. "business analysis training courses" and "business analysis"

Perhaps you could explain?

Also the comment I made "It matters, yes, but it matters a lot less than it use to" was a Rand quote, from one of his wbf videos in which he was talking about the effects or keywords in the  url. He also said that this now only contributes to rankings in 3% of cases.

Cheers, Lee

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

It would be a better advice in my opinion to only say that the last URL should only be used if the content on the page doesn't work and rank for itself already. Otherwise the URL has to contribute for all of it.

[LeeC]

Instead of

www.site.com/training/courses/business-analysis

use;

www.site.com/training/courses/business-analysis-training-courses

It matters, yes, but it matters a lot less than it use to.

[paints-n-design]

I never took a look at the difference, it is fact, that it is great when you have the searched words in your url structure. I often saw, that there is no need to have the correct sequence. I think it could be a bit better if you have the sequence the user is searchin for, but I would bet that changing the url structure in several cases would cost a lot of time. The benefit couldn't be that great, that I would start to do that. I never tested it, but I also don't focus that much on one search querie sequence...