URL Structure
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Hello,
Within the last few months, my company launched a brand new website for our clients. Unfortunately, the web developers we went through aren't very knowledgeable on SEO practices and as a result, our URL structure is a total mess. I'm looking for some advice on the best way to go about a possible restructure of the URL's or what you suggest I should do from here.
Any advice helps.
Thanks!
Lauren McLaughlin
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Ouch.
The only thing I'd add to Donford's comments is you're going to want to limit the redirect chain as much as possible when renaming files and folders for a third time. If you can go directly from original folder/file to newly renamed folder/file and skip the interim non-SEO-friendly URLs, that would be best. That said, you're going to have to bear in mind and plan for any newly acquired bookmarks and/or links since the relaunch.
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Hello,
There is this post here on Moz which has some great guidance. But to adequately answer your question I wonder if you're using a CMS? If so there maybe a few nice add-ons / modules to help with this task.
My basic advice would be to:
- Identify the pages top keyword and use it in the url.
- Short URLS are better
- Limit parameters
- Try not to go more than 2 folders deep (ie /computers/accessories/)
- Use Hyphens instead of Underscores
- Avoid Stop Words
I hope this helps,
Don
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