Competing URLs
-
Hi
We have a number of blogs that compete with our homepage for some keywords/phrases.
The URLs of the blogs contain the keywords/phrases. I would like to re-work the blogs so that they target different keywords that don't compete and are more relevant. Should I change the URLs as I think this is what is mainly causing the issue? If so, should I 301 old URL's to the homepage?
For example, say we we're a site that specialised in selling plastic cups. Currently there is a blog with the URL www.mysite.com/plastic-cups that outranks the homepage for _plastic cups. _The blog isn't particularly relevant to plastic cups and the homepage should rank for this term. How should I let Google know that it is the homepage that is most relevant for this term?
Thanks
-
A few unordered thoughts:
- I don't think that the URL alone is what's causing the blog to outrank the homepage. Some causes are probably that the content is better suited towards "plastic cups", the on-page optimization is more specific towards "plastic cups", or that the blog post has more internal/external links pointing to it. Also could be a combination of any/all of these.
- If your main topic for the site is around plastic cups, then the homepage should probably rank for it. In which case you could 301 the blog post to the homepage, and ensure that the homepage is targeting "plastic cups" as best as possible and that the content suits that keyword well.
- If the main topic for the website isn't plastic cups, then I would argue that it's OK that the blog post ranks—take that and use the homepage to target something else entirely and just make sure the CTA on the blog post is appropriate.
The way to let Google know your homepage is most relevant for the term:
- Redirect blog post to homepage.
- Ensure homepage has well written and helpful content around the topic.
- Ensure homepage targeting (title tag, h1, etc) is focused on the topic.
- Re-submit sitemap to Google for re-crawling and wait for a few days/possibly a week.
Hope that's helpful!
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
-
URL change - Sitemap update / redirect
Hi everyone Recently we performed a massive, hybrid site migration (CMS, URL, site structure change) without losing any traffic (yay!). Today I am finding out that our developers+copy writers decided to change Some URLs (pages are the same) without notifying anyone (I'm not going into details why). Anyhow, some URLs in site map changed, so old URLs don't exist anymore. Here is the example: OLD (in sitemap, indexed): https://www.domain.com/destinations/massachusetts/dennis-port NEW: https://www.domain.com/destinations/massachusetts/cape-cod Also, you should know that there is a number of redirects that happened in the past (whole site) Example : Last couple years redirections: HTTP to HTTPS non-www to www trailing slash to no trailing slash Most recent (a month ago ) Site Migration Redirects (URLs / site structure change) So I could add new URLs to the sitemap and resubmit in GSC. My dilemma is what to do with old URL? So we already have a ton of redirects and adding another one is not something I'm in favor of because of redirect loops and issues that can affect our SEO efforts. I would suggest to change the original, most recent 301 redirects and point to the new URL ( pre-migration 301 redirect to newly created URL). The goal is not to send mixed signals to SEs and not to lose visibility. Any advice? Please let me know if you need more clarification. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bgvsiteadmin0 -
Product URL Optimisation
Hi guys, We are currently trying to add new products to our site but we are in a quandary on what type of URL structure to pursue. For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | michel_8
Product Name: Aspect Exfoliating Cleanser 240ml https://www.example.com.au/aspect-exfoliating-cleanser-240ml (including the size)
VS
https://www.example.com.au/aspect-exfoliating-cleanser 1.) Which is a better URL structure based on SEO 2018 and why?
2.) Is there any merit in removing the size from the URL key with the aim of attracting more traffic? Keen to hear from you guys! Cheers,0 -
Confused: Url Restructure
Hello, We're giving our website a bit of a spring clean in terms of SEO. The site is doing ok, but after the time invested in SEO, content and last year's migration of multiple sites into one, we're not seeing the increase in traffic we had hoped. Our current urls look something like this: /a-cake-company/cup-cakes/strawberry We have the company name as the first level as we with the migration we migrated many companies into one site. What we're considering is testing some pages with a structure like this: /cup-cakes/cup-cake-company-strawberry So we'll lose a level and we'll focus more on the category of the product rather than the brand. What's your thoughts on this? We weren't going to do a mass change yet, just a test, but is this something we should be focusing on? In terms of organisation our current url structure is perfect, but what about from an SEO point of view? In terms of keywords customers are looking for both options. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HB170 -
Mixing static.htm urls and dynamic urls on a Windows IIS Server?
Hi all, We've had a website originally built using static html with .htm extensions ranking well in Google hence we want to keep those pages/urls. We are on a dedicated sever (Windows IIS). However our developer has custom made a new DYNAMIC section for the site which shows new added products dynamically and allows them to be booked online via shopping cart. We are having problems displaying them both on the same domain even if we put the dynamic section withing its own subfolder and keep the static htms in the root. Is it possible to have both function on IIS (even if they may have to function a little separately)? Does anyone have previous experience of this kind of issue or a way of making both work? What setup do we need to do on the dedicated server.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | emerald0 -
Is it best to have products and reviews on the same URL?
Hi Moz, Is it better to have products and reviews on the same or different URLs? I suspect that combining these into one page will help with rankings overall even though some ranking for product review terms may suffer. This is for a hair products company with tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of reviews. Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Urls in Bilingual websites
1-I have a bilingual website. Suppose that I am targeting a page for keyword "book" and I have included it in that page url for the English version: English version: www.abc.com/book Can I use the translation of "book" in the second language of the website url instead of "book" ? Please let me know which of the following urls are right " French Verison: www.abc.com/fr/book or www.abc.com/fr/livre livre=Book in French 2- Does Google have any tool to check if the second language page of the website has exactly the same content as the English version. What I want to do is for example for a certain page in English version, my targeted keyword is "book" . So my content would be around books. But in the French version of this page, I want to focus on keyword "Pencil" in French instead of "book". Is it wrong or any consequences? That was the main reason for the question number one. Because if it is ok to do what I explained in item 2 then I will set my urls like: In English : www.abc.com/book In French: www.abc.com/fr/crayon crayon=Pencil in French
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
How long until my correct url is in the serps?
We changed our website including urls. We setup 301 redirects for our pages. Some of the pages show up as the old url and some the new url. When does that change?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Quick URL structure question
Say you've got 5,000 articles. Each of these are from 2-3 generations of taxonomy. For example: example.com/motherboard/pc/asus39450 example.com/soundcard/pc/hp39 example.com/ethernet/software/freeware/stuffit294 None of the articles were SUPER popular as is, but they still bring in a bit of residual traffic combined. Few thousand or so a day. You're switching to a brand new platform. Awesome new structure, taxonomy, etc. The real deal. But, historically, you don't have the old taxonomy functions. The articles above, if created today, file under example.com/hardware/ This is the way it is from here on out. But what to do with the historical files? keep the original URL structure, in the new system. Readers might be confused if they try to reach example.com/motherboard, but at least you retain all SEO weight and these articles are all older anyways. Who cares? Grab some lunch. change the urls to /hardware/, and redirect everything the right way. Lose some rank maybe, but its a smooth operation, nice and neat. Grab some dinner. change the urls to /hardware/ DONT redirect, surprise Google with 5k articles about old computer hardware. Magical traffic splurge, go skydiving. Panic, cry into your pillow. Get job signing receipts at CostCo Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico0