Proper URL Structure. Feedback on Vendors Recommendation
-
Urgent! We're doing a site redesign and our vendor recommended new url structure as follows: website.com/folder/word1word2word3. Our current structure is website.com/word1-word2
They said that from SEO perspective, it doesn't make a difference if there are dashes between words or not and Google can read either URL. Is that true? I need experts to weigh on the above, as well as SEO implications if we were to implement their suggestion.
-
Hi there, I've got a few thoughts to drop about this, but I want to make sure I answer your specific question first, then answer what I think are the lead up or follow up questions that are either on your mind or that you'll land at in the end anyway.
There are specific instances where you may favor one URL structure over the other. For example, our landing pages are similar to your current structure, and the rest of the website is more similar to your vendor's proposed structure. Folders are a great way to categorize your content and help both Google and users navigate and understand your content. However, you do not want to lose the hyphens. That can make it difficult for users to read in search when they're deciding on a page to view and it can be difficult for Google to read. Let's say your URL has an acronym in it - maybe you're writing about basketball and NBA is in the URL. So your URL becomes: website.com/sports/hownbaistakingcharge Or website.com/sports/baskteballnbakobe. Are either of those readable? You have two stakeholders, Google and Users and your URL structure should support both. Compare the above to website.com/sports/how-nba-is-taking-charge or /basketball-nba-kobe. That's much better for Google because they can clearly read the different words and make sense of it, and it's much better for Users who are trying to quickly scan the URL on Google. I would push back on the vendor that the hyphenation is necessary.
I've listed a few other questions below that I would have for my vendor and team if we were proposing a major restructuring of the site's content.
A new URL structure means a few other things will likely change.
1. Have you thought about creating a redirect map for every page that is going to move?
2. How will the new URL structure interact with breadcrumbs on your site?
3. If you move to folders are you going to need to create head pages e.g. website.com/sports/how-nba-is-taking-charge is located under a main "sports" page that maybe doesn't exist yet. You WILL have users that attempt to reach the head page whether it exists or not and they'll be sent to a 404 instead.
4. Will changing your URL structure alter your main and sub navigation elements on the site? (in almost every instance, it should)And then my final question, knowing how much work it is to take a healthy site and improve it by changing the URL structure alone is this: what is the expected value? Why are we doing this? Sometimes there's a legitimate reason and sometimes it's pure vanity. The SEO upside to a major restructuring like this isn't normally enormous, but the effort involved can be titanic. So be sure your expectations are realistic going into it and get the details fleshed out as much as possible ahead of time.
Best of luck, let me know if I can answer anymore questions.
-
I would actually go with the folder structure most of the time. As in most cases that you come across there is no overlap in parts of the content that you have. That's why you sort of want to create mini silos on your site. For that I would always recommend to go that way so you can divide the content across multiple folders.
-
Hello there!
You should not think as: "what google wants?", think in what is best for users.
If you are using a site, what could be your more usefull structure for your understanding.In my opinion and my experience, works better this structure: website.com/word1-word2 WRONG
--EDIT--
Didn´t read the /folder/ in the first option.
So, then my advise is that to make a mix of both structures, something like this:
website.com/folder1/folder2/word1-word2,This helps you a lot to better structure the site, as Martjin said, to create silos and even more to create categories for different niches or contents in the site
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR
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
-
Are the prepositions and separate letters in URL bad for website optimization?
Is it ok for website optimization to use prepositions and separate letters in URL ? Examples: -i-series ; -salad-with-avocado etc.
On-Page Optimization | | adrecom0 -
Structured Data on mobile and desktop version of a page
Hey there,
On-Page Optimization | | Online-Marketing-Guy
certain pages of our website have mobile versions like m.mysite.com/content-xyz. On the desktop pages (i.e. mysite.com/content-xyz) we have "rich snippets for ratings" marked up and displayed in SERPs. However the ratings also appear in mobile search results when SERPS reference the mobile version of the page (m.mysite.com/content-xyz) which doesn't have any ratings or markup? I am trying to figure out how Google treats mobile versions of a page in relation to the desktop version in relation to structured data (breadcrumbs etc.)? Would you always mark up both versions to be the same? Any ideas and thoughts on this are greatly appreciated. Cheers, Jochen rich Snippets for Ratings1 -
How important are clean URLs?
Just wanting to understand the importance of clean URLs in regards to SEO effectiveness. Currently, we have URLs for a site that reads as follows: http://www.interhampers.com.au/c/90/Corporate Gift Hampers Should we look into modifying this so that the URL does not have % or figures?
On-Page Optimization | | Gavo1 -
Language for URLs on new international websites
We are due to launch our new site and it will be targeting an international market. We have setup these new sites in the following way www.website.com/fr/content-goes-here www.website.com/es/content-goes-here This has been done in conjunction with setting up the parameters in GWT and making sure it is optimised for the language itself, and that countries search engine. But our web dev team have said that the URLs at the moment will be in english and not the native language, so if you were on the french version of our site you would see the url in english and not french. Will this negatively affect the site for SEO, and who else would think it would be negative from a usability perspective? Any help is appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | RyanCrawf19840 -
Replacing website, same URL, lose ranking
We had to do a rush job for a client and get a website up very quickly. We had to just replace the existing files on the server, but URL stayed the same. Now "teeth whitening glasgow" which they were number #1 for isn't coming up. Know there is still some on page work to be done - but the link profile should still remain the same? Just looking for some advice to get back to where they were - should we do a website change of address or just verify the site in Webmaster and get all the on page done? Thanks, Laura
On-Page Optimization | | lauratagdigital0 -
Recommended Wordpress themes for great SEO
Hi there, I'm trying to decide which theme to use. My main concern is if the theme has been built using a stable framework to ensure plugin compatibility for SEO. Also a general question, does the homepage need to have a certain amount of text content for SEO, or can other pages be SEO optimised with text / keyword? Some of the nicer themes seem to have a sparce text to image ratio on the homepage. I quite like this as an initial 'welcome' but worry this isn't great for SEO. Any suggested themes / advice will be welcome. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Site Structure
I'm confused about the best way for seo to set up the site structure . i understand the examples of the pyramid diagrams and how link juice flows, however does this mean that global navigation is not good? It appears the pyramid structure leads to the designated number of category pages (we'll use five) and they lead to the 5 content pages etc and some "superman pages" can be linked to from the home page but is this is global navigation or anchor text navigation and is gloval navigation acdeptable for content pages? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | JulB0 -
Is it better to embed my longtail article or give it a separate url?
Within my e-commerce site I have jewelers who using uncommon techniques and maetrials. I have a few long tail type article ready to publish about these niche topics. My site navigation has each jeweler as a category with their often changing products within their category. I am thinking I would add an article to the artist-category content. But in the past, I have put "how to" or "what is" content in an article section of the site. This way I could link to it from several places. With the long tail in mind, would I be better off adding the article to the jeweler's category page? If I have a 2nd jeweler using this same technique, I am thinking I would rewrite the 1st article including different long tail phrases. Thank You for Helping- Handcrafter
On-Page Optimization | | stephenfishman0