Yet Another, Yet Important URL structure query.
-
Massive changes to our stock media site and structure here.
While we have an extensive category system previously our category pages have only been our search pages with ID numbers for
sorting categories. Now we have individual category pages.
We have about 600 categories with about 4 max tiers.
We have about 1,000,000 total products and issues with products appearing to be duplicate.
Our current URL structure for producta looks like this:
http://example.com/main-category/12345/product-name.htm
Here is how I was planning on doing the new structure:
Cat tier 1:
http://example.com/category-one/
Cat tier 2:
http://example.com/category-one/category-two/
Cat tier 3:
http://example.com/category-one-category-two/category-three
Cat tier 4:
http://example.com/category-one-category-two-category-three/category-four/
Product:
http://example.com/category-one-category-two-category-three/product-name-12345.htm
Thoughts?
Thanks!
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
If the keyword appears twice in the url it should be acceptable. What I normally do is to look at the url & judge if it still looks "natural" (with "natural" off course is quite subjective). If it looks stuffed, I change, if not I keep it. Check the 'stuffed' examples here: http://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2014/09/09/url-keyword-stuffing-spam-filtering/
Sorry I cannot be more specific, it's a bit of a grey area.
Dirk
-
Hey Dirk,
Thanks again for the great insight here.
I have a follow-up however...
On our current product pages pre-URL change, the URL structure looks like this:
Let's say, for example purposes, that two of our very top keywords are "Calico Cats" and "Calico Kittens."
example.com/Calico-Cats-Kittens/12345/Tiny-Cat-Playing.html
Before this site re-mod we didn't have any actual category pages, the categories just linked to our search results pages as talked about previously.
The new category pages would look like this:
example.com/Calico-Cats/Calico-Kittens/Sub-Category-One/Sub-Category-Two
So, my question is first for the category page:
Which is better:
example.com/Calico-Cats/Calico-Kittens/Sub-Category-One/Sub-Category-Two/
example.com/Calico-Cats/Kittens/Sub-Category-One/Sub-Category-Two/Is there any concern here with Repeating the word "Calico?"
And for the product page:
example.com/Calico-Cats/Tiny-Cat-Playing-12345.html
(Excluding the "Calico-Kittens" category level to decrease the number of folders and also, because of the concern that including "Calico" twice may be an issue?
ORexample.com/Calico-Cats/Calico-Kittens/Tiny-Cats-Playing-12345.html
(including an extra category layer, but only because "Calico-Kittens" is one of our top, most valuable keywords)There will be hundreds of thousands of product pages like this.
Thanks again for your help!
Craigexample.com/Calico-Cats/Calico-Kittens/Sub-Category-One/Sub-Category-Two
-
Hi Craig,
Personally I would prefer folders because it's easier for reporting purposes
Cat tier 1:
http://example.com/category-one/Cat tier 2:
http://example.com/category-one/category-two/Cat tier 3:
http://example.com/category-one/category-two/category-threeCat tier 4:
http://example.com/category-one/category-two/category-three/category-four/It seems to go against the rule of a flat site structure, but in fact for that, it's more the number of links to the category that counts rather than the number of folders.
For the product url I wouldn't use all these folders. If one product belongs two multiple categories / subcategories you'll end up with duplicate urls - here I would rather go forhttp://example.com/xxx/product-name-12345.htm. xxx could stand for the main category (if each product belongs to only one main category) or something generic like "products"
Some additional info can be found here: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/structured-urls/
Hope this helps,
Dirk
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
-
Unsolved Orphaned unwanted urls from the cms
Hi
Technical SEO | | MattHopkins
I am working on quite an old cms, and there are bunch of urls that don't make any sense.
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-outdoor-furniture/all-outdoor-furniture/1
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-chairs/all-chairs/1
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-industries/all-chairs/1
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-chairs/all-industries/1
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-chairs/banqueting-furniture/1
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-chairs/bar-furniture/1
https://www.trentfurniture.co.uk/products/all-chairs/bentwood-furniture/1
For example there are no internal links. And fortunately not much traffic at all. But I can't see in the cms why they are generating? I've tried to check the html code to check why, what's the reason? But all I can think of is the structure....? something odd the cms writes?
Anyone have any ideas please? And would I redirect all these? Just thinking there could be a better solution/fix, rather than redirects since there are no links or traffic.....Like the devs solve why they are generating.....Unfortunately I get very slow responses from the devs as a 3rd pty company, hence on here ;0). (Some of those are indexed too)... :0) Thanks in advance....0 -
Canonical URL on frontpage
I have a site where the CMS system have added a canonical URL on my frontpage, pointing to a subpage on my site. Something like on my domain root.Google is still showing MyDomain.com as the result in the search engines which is good, but can't this approach hurt my ranking? I mean it's basically telling google that my frontpage content is located far down the hierarki, instead of my domain root, which of course have the most authority.
Technical SEO | | EdmondHong87
Something seems to indicate that this could very well be the case, as we lost several placements after moving to this new CMS system a few months ago.0 -
Structured markup for wordpress
Hello, I am having problems with marking up my WP posts. I used the All-in-One which seems to be the most user-friendly, except when I denote the aspects of the "article" and update, the markup shows up as a box at the bottom of the post (even though the info is in the text). How do I mark these up for Google without having the unseemly box at the bottom? Thanks so much in advance for any help! Btw, I am not altogether comfortable just yet on manual schematic markup (if you have a really basic manual markup that will let me do so across various platforms, I would also appreciate the recommendation). Thanks!
Technical SEO | | lfrazer1 -
Changing URL - Ranking Disappeared?
Hi All, I named a page URL /plectrums/ within the back end framework. But then decided to change it to /personalised-plectrums/ I resubmitted a GWT sitemap and 301 redirected plectrums -> personalised-plectrums My ranking for personalised plectrums has disappeared and has not come back does anyone know why this is? Or is there something I have missed? Lewis
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
URL Structure Question
We are building a job board website that will have a decent amount of "career resources" type content and want to make sure we set up our url structure correctly. After researching on Google and here I have an idea how to structure it but would like some insight if we are on the right track. We are using Wordpress for the content part of our website. We will have about 5 content categories (like resume-tips, job-interviews, job-search etc.) The two options we are considering; www.domain.com/career-resources/index.html As content start page www.domain.com/career-resources/resume-tips/index.html category start page www.domain.com/career-resources/resume-tips/top-5-resume-mistakes.html article name is the /career-resources/ folder really needed or can we go something like; www.domain.com/career-resources/index.html As content start page www.domain.com/resume-tips/index.html category start page www.domain.com/resume-tips/top-5-resume-mistakes.html article name Are we on the right track... and is one way better for SEO that the other? Thanks! Shaun
Technical SEO | | aactive0 -
SEO friendldy Site structure?
we are in the process or rewriting all the pages on one of our sites and will be changing some urls around. i was just wondering if dashes or underscores are better in the urls SEO wise? www.site.com/word-word-word/ or
Technical SEO | | 858-SEO
www.site.com/word_word_word/ i personally like the underscores better but some colleagues tell me that dashes are better, any tests out there on this issue?? Thanks0 -
Long URL
I am using seomoz software as a trial, it has crawled my site and a report is telling me that the URL for my forum is to long: <dl> <dt>Title</dt> <dd>Healthy Living Community</dd> <dt>Meta Description</dt> <dd>Healthy life discussion forum chatting about all aspects of healthy living including nutrition, fitness, motivation and much more.</dd> <dt>Meta Robots</dt> <dd>noodp, noydir</dd> <dt>Meta Refresh</dt> <dd>Not present/empty</dd> <dd> 1 Warning Long URL (> 115 characters) Found about 17 hours ago <dl> <dt>Number of characters</dt> <dd>135 (over by 21)</dd> <dt>Description</dt> <dd>A good URL is descriptive and concise. Although not a high priority, we recommend a URL that is shorter than 75 characters.</dd> </dl> </dd> <dd> URL: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/reprogramming-health/welcome-to-the-forum-for-discussing-the-4-steps-for-reprogramming-ones-health/ The problem is when I check the page via edit or in the admin section of wordpress, the url is a s follows: http://www.goodhealthword.com/forum/ My question is where is I cannot see where this long url is located, it appears to be a valid page but I cant find it. Thanks Pete </dd> </dl>
Technical SEO | | petemarko0 -
What is your opinion on ideal url structure?
Which url structure do you think is better... website.com/CO/denver/555-your-address-way-denver-co-55678/98347578 or website.com/classifying-keyword/555_your_address_way-denver_colorado-55678-98347578 orrr website.com/classifying-keyword/555-your-address-way-denver-colorado-55678-98347578
Technical SEO | | jessefriedman0