URLs too long, but run an eCommerce site
-
Hi,
When I started out I was pretty green to SEO, and didn't consider the usability/SEO impact of URL structure.
Flash forward, I'm 5 years deep into using the following:
mysite.com/downloads/category/premium-downloads/sub-category/ ("category" is quite literally one rung on the link - thanks, WordPress - however "sub-category" is a placeholder)
I run a digital downloads store, and I now have 100s ofinternal links beholden to this hideous category linking structure. Not to mention external links at Google Ads, etc.
I would LOVE to change this, but if I were to do so, what should I consider? For instance, is there a checklist for making a change like this?
I was thinking of changing it to something like the following:
mysite.com/shop/c/premium/sub-category/
And also, how much damage, if any, would this be doing to my SEO?
Thanks in advance,
Lou -
So in July (2019) John Mu from Google stated that URLs are generally ok up to 1,000 characters:
Google 'can' crawl and index URLs over 1,000 characters long (up to about 2k characters) but best practice seems to be up to 1,000 characters
Due to this, I personally don't agree with Moz's evaluation of, when a URL is getting too long. Your example URL, is nowhere close to 1,000 characters long. Where Moz and Google disagree I tend to side with Google info
That being said, your URL has redundant layers. Why even have "/category/" in the URL? Just go like this:
mysite.com/downloads/premium-downloads/sub-category/
People aren't so stupid that they need a fake URL layer called "/category/", to know that the following URL layer 'is' a category. IMO that's redundant architecture which is getting in your way for no reason
If you don't perform your redirects properly and you change the architecture of the site, you absolutely could see a negative impact on your rankings. Unless you're confident in terms of crawling your whole site, performing very granular redirects with high accuracy and missing nothing - I'd just leave it as it is
-
One key thing to have in mind when designing your URL is to relate it to the keywords you're aiming for. Cluttering it with folders and categories will put less attention on the targeted keyword, which in your case should be about the download or purchase of the software. That is why generally in WordPress blogs it is suggested to go for the direct slug as in "site.com/url-slug-keyword/"
The perfect solution will depend on your site and what you're aiming for, but what I would suggest is to keep the URL up to one or two categories that are directly related to the targeted keywords. Also, on a study of the top sites on Google by NeilPatel, it is suggested that you keep the URL length between 50-60 characters.
As for the SEO impact, after properly completing the 301 redirect to the new URL, then you won't have any issues and will instead see growth if the change is seen positively by Google.
Daniel Rika
[Signature removed by forum moderator.]
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
-
Site address change: new site isn't showing up in Google, old site is gone.
We just transitioned mccacompanies.com to confluentstrategies.com. The problem is that when I search for the old name, the old website doesn't come up anymore to redirect people to the new site. On the local card, Google has even taken off the website altogether. (I'm currently still trying to gain access to manage the business listing) When I search for confluent strategies, the website doesn't come up at all. But if I use the site: operator, it is in the index. Basically, my client has effectively disappeared off the face of the Google. (In doing other name changes, this has never happened to me before) What can I do?
Technical SEO | | MichaelGregory0 -
Why are these blackhat sites so successful?
Here's an interesting conundrum. Here are three sites with their respective ranking for "dental implants [city]:" http://dentalimplantsvaughan.ca - 9 (on google.ca) http://dentalimplantsinhonoluluhi.com - 2 (on google.com) http://dentalimplantssurreybc.ca - 7 (on google.ca) These markets are not particularly competitive, however, all of these sites suffer from: Duplicate content, both internally and across sites (all of this company's implant sites have the same exact content, minus the bio pages and the local modifier). Average speed score. No structured data No links And these sites are ranking relatively quickly. The Vaughan site went live 3 months ago. But, what's boggling my mind is that they rank on the first page at all. It seems they're doing the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do, yet they rank relatively well.
Technical SEO | | nowmedia10 -
In Facebook when i place my site URL the image does not load?
In Facebook when i place my site URL the image does not load? It loads some generic image or logo but not other image thats related to the page. Is there any Tag we need to add in the website so the image loads? Is it good to use a tag as this for description? property="og:description" content="Some data" />
Technical SEO | | bsharath0 -
Googlebot cannot access your site
Hello, I have a website http://www.fivestarstoneinc.com/ and earlier today I got an emil from webmaster tools saying "Googlebot cannot access your site" Wondering what the problem could be and how to fix it.
Technical SEO | | Rank-and-Grow0 -
Site-wide Links
Hey y'all, I know this question has been asked many times before but I wanted to see what your stance was on this particular case. The organisation I work for is a group of 12 companies - each with its own website. On some of the sites we have a link to the other sites within the group on every single page of that site. Our organic search traffic has dropped a bit but not significantly and we haven't received any manual penalties from Google. It's also worth mentioning that the referral traffic for these sites from the other sites I control is quite good and the bounce rate is extremely low. If you were in my shoes would you remove the links, put a nofollow tag on the links or leave the links as they are? Thanks guys 🙂
Technical SEO | | AAttias0 -
Linking shallow sites to flagship sites
We have hundreds of domains that we are either doing nothing with, or they are very shallow. We do not have the time to build enough quality content on them since they are ancillary to our flagship sites that are already in need of attention and good content. My question is...should we redirect them to the flagship site? If yes, is it ok to do this from root domain to root domain or should we link the root domain to a matching/similar page (gymfranchises.com to http://www.franchisesolutions.com/health_services_franchise_opportunities.cfm)? Or should we do something different altogether? Since we have many to redirect (if this is the route we go), should we redirect gradually?
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions0 -
Structure of urls
**Hallo from Athens, Greece. We have to implement the following project and i need your help: ** We will build a company guide for the whole country and company local guides for each city for the same client. **Information of the country guide is the sum of information of local guides, so when a user is at the country guide he sees information from companies from all cities and when the user is at city guide he sees info only for the city. ** The problem is the structure of the url we should have. Should the page of presentation of each company should have structure as domain.gr/id/company? or city.domain.gr/id/company and the one to be canonical to the other? is this good for seo? Should both urls be included in the sitemap? Thank you
Technical SEO | | herculesopa0 -
What can we do to improve our site
Hi. I am hoping that some of you can help me with the in2town site www.in2town.co.uk The site is a news/lifestyle magazine site. The site is a cross between, huffington post, digital spy, female first and the sun newspaper. Basically the site is a news site as well as covering showbiz news, travel news, health news and advice etc What i would like is for people to look at the site and let me know what they feel i should do to improve the site to make it better for our readers and to gain more readership. I would also like to hear from people on how they find moving around the site as well as the speed of the site. At the moment the site is with an american hosting company and i am in the process of talking to UK hosting companies to move the site. The site is currently on a dedicated server. It would mean a lot if people could give me their advice on how to improve the site and make it a beter experience for our readers while at the same time being able to generate income with the site. Just a quick note, all content is original and we have a number of people who write for the site. many thanks
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860