How to Define Best URL Structure for Product Pages?

[CommercePundit]

I am working on my website to edit structure with help of Google's search engine optimization starter guide.

There is really good instruction to define URL structure which help us to perform well over Google's organic search. I have resolved issues regarding category pages but, I have confusion to define best URL structure for product pages. My website's product page URL structure is as follow.

http://www.vistastores.com/marketumbrellas-californiaumbrella-slpt758-f13-red.html

http://www.vistastores.com/homefurniture-winsomewood-93630.html

URL structure is constructed with following terms.

1. Root Category Name (Market Umbrellas or Home Furniture or ....)

2. Brand Name

3. Manufacturer Part Number

I am not happy with this structure and also not performing well over Google's organic search. I am thinking to include product name or title tag in URL after root domain. But, it may create very long URL and create issues in organic search display.

Does it really matter to perform well over Google's organic search? How can I define best URL structure for product pages?

[RyanKent]

I would recommend dropping the .html / htm extensions from both URLs.

The first URL is quite long and has too many folders. I am concerned the page requires too many clicks and/or you are stuffing too many keywords in your URL.

[CommercePundit]

I have done some R & D and come to know about few Good URL structure which I am going to follow.

http://indiaemporium.com/women/salwar-kameez/collection-anarkali-salwar-kameez/fabric-georgette/work-embroidered.html

http://www.bellacor.com/bronze-transitional-glass-shade-golden-lighting-chandeliers.htm

[RyanKent]

That is quite a URL! Definitely not the best structure.

What exactly did you search for do generate that URL?

[CommercePundit]

I'm again on this question. Because, I'm going to make big change on URLs.

1. Product Pages

2. Narrow by Search Pages.

I don't have issue with product pages. But, Narrow by search pages create with too many nesting sub directories as follow.

http://www.vistatables.com/chandeliers/shopby/finish-search/other/glass-shade-type-search/other/manufacturer/elk-lighting/material-search/glass/no-of-bulbs-search/3-light/price/3,100/product-type-search/cone-chandeliers/style-search/traditional

Can you suggest me best one for this kind of structure? I have read Google official guidelines and Randfish post on it. But, I have just mind set & want to get some additional inputs via this question.

[CommercePundit]

I want to add my response on this question after long time. Because, I have made few changes as per discussion. You can see by this excel sheet.

I have changed entire structure for URLs and finished following tasks.

• 301 Redirect [Old URLs to New URLs]
• Multiple XML Sitemaps [Create Category Wise & Submit to Webmaster Tools]
• Rel=canonical for duplication

I have very simple question for crawling. How Google will act for these changes. Will Google slow down my crawling or not? OR any other inputs which may help me in same direction!

[RyanKent]

Any time I work with a website, I envision what a "world-class" version of the site would look like, then work to make the image a reality.

Design your pages for a world-class audience:

• If Steven Spielberg wants to find a lamp for a movie scene, are your pages something he would want to look at for ideas?

• If Madonna needs a new lamp in her living room, would she ever look at your pages and think "wow, that would go perfect in my home"

• Can you imagine any interior design magazines or Good Housekeeping linking to your page and mentioning it?

You have lamps which show a retail price of $1000. It's not really a price thing, because you will see models wear inexpensive clothes if they have the right look. The idea is to showcase your products in the best possible light.

[RyanKent]

I still strongly dislike the idea of having product ids in the product title. I am not clear of your reasonings for adding the id to the title. The only place the title is seen is in search results.

Social media buttons next to each product is a very good thing.

[CommercePundit]

Hey Ryan!! Again very good suggestion to hire good SEO consultant.... I am 1000% to going to do that.... What you think about future performance of this website... ? Can I mesh up lighting industry with proper SEO stuffs? This is really big mind bubble in business direction... This is not SEO but as per your knowledge ... Does it really matter to do it in future?

[CommercePundit]

It's really really good answer. But, I am not able to click Good answer... Don't worry about it.

BTW: I am getting your point... I am selling tiki torches with Table Lamps board... If any stall in market for selling tiki torches so banner of canopy will be Tiki Torches... What you think about it?

I have list down all suggestions in my diary... as follow.

1. Remove initial Number from title tag and add in to end.

2. Edit URL structure with name. may be include category name.

3. I will add unique content with product details.

4. I am going to add more images for products. (What you think about social media buttons like Google plus, Twitter and Facebook?)

If any missing so you can add in this list... So, that's great for me.

[RyanKent]

Your site has 5k+ errors, 11k+ warnings. My main concern is the 4k+ duplicate pages. The issue is your pages lack content. You need to add unique, relevant, quality content to every page of your site you wish to be indexed.

I would recommend a professional consultation with an SEO. Your site offers very nice products. Your site requires a tremendous amount of SEO attention. Proper SEO can have a dramatic impact on your site's pages being index and your overall sales. If you wish to do-it-yourself, that is possible to but you have a very long way to go. Please check out the Beginner's Guide to SEO.

[RyanKent]

I thinking one solution for it. I am going to add manufacturer part number in Title tag rather than URL...

If you take that approach definitely add it to the END of the title, not the beginning. I looked at your site and your page title shows as "53927 Phoenix Copper Waterproof Floor Lamp". Horrible!

The idea of a page title is to allow users to know what the page is about. The item id really shouldn't be part of a title.

The summary of your site is, you are doing far too much too fast. You are not giving your items and pages the attention they require, and your SEO and sales will suffer for it. Your goal is to offer as many products as you can, as fast as possible, as cheaply as possible. This approach directly conflicts with quality measures.

Take one product I found on your site: http://www.vistastores.com/indoorlighting-patiolivingconcepts-53927.html

I understand the product page completely. This is one of 7k+ products you offer. It was likely added to your page as part of a database feed. But look at the URL, the page and it's content. Now take a step back and imagine for a moment you had a small, established lamp shop and this product was one which was added to your store today. Think about adding this page to your site.

The page URL would probably be: http://www.vistastores.com/phoenix-copper-waterproof-floor-lamp. The URL would be much more helpful all around.

Think about the page text. You would describe the lamp itself, maybe offer some examples of it's uses "perfect for intimate lighting in areas near fishtanks, bathrooms, indoor gardens or other areas with higher levels of moisture".

Think about the additional pictures you might provide if this lamp was just one of a few items you sold. You would probably have a few nice displays and can show the lamp in each setting.

The bottom line is, your wish to sell 15k+ products is driving the quality of your site's pages to very low levels. There is almost no unique information on the pages. If you hired someone to spend 2 hours on each and every page making them personal, adding content, etc. the value of those pages to your customers and to search engines would substantially increase. I understand if you can't afford to do it, but you also need to understand your SEO and conversion challenges you will face as a result of "speeding" so fast with an e-commerce site.

[CommercePundit]

I want to give few answers for your questions. I have already done some of following tasks for my website. But, still not getting... That's why I am too much irritated with it.

1. Have you submitted a sitemap to Google? If not, do so as there are clearly some issues.

My answer: Yup, I have submitted to Google, Yahoo & Bing.

2. Have you performed a test crawl of your site? Use the SEOmoz crawler. You don't need a 100% complete report. You are trying to review your site for crawl errors which impact your whole site.

My answer: Yup, I have checked it. You can find out attachment to know more about it. You can help me more on this section. Because, I am quite new with SEOmoz tools.

3. I would suggest examining your site's navigation. With only 1% of your site getting indexed, there may be a problem.

My answer: Regarding what? Top navigation? Left navigation? Footer? Breadcrumb or HTML sitemap?

4. Do you have any content on your product pages? If you just throw up an image with a product name, the page will likely not be indexed.

My answer: You can look in to know more.

http://www.vistastores.com/indoorlighting-patiolivingconcepts-68267.html

I have added all product details, manufacturer details (But, it's duplicate on many webpages.)

5. Ensure your robots.txt file is not blocking pages which should be indexed.

My answer: Yup, I checked it ... http://www.vistastores.com/robots.txt.... It's perfect... according to my opinion...

6. Thoroughly examine your Google WMT for errors and issues.

My answer: I will do it... It's remaining.

6133009604_af85d29730_b.jpg

[CommercePundit]

@ Ryan Kent

Oh great. Thanks man...

You are right about manufacturer part number. But, I have added it to URL because duplication of product title in website. There are 7000+ products and may be 15000+ products in near future.

Sometimes, It's quite critical or time consuming to develop unique product title for all products. Because, it seems like duplicate title from manufacturers' sheet.

I personally believe to make product live before making unique title for each products. So, right now it's helping me to prevent duplicate product URLs with my website.

I am thinking and 100% implementing your suggestions regarding .html.

Manufacturer part number may be help me to create organic presence during that search. I have also submitted my products over Google shopping and going to disply during manufacturer part number.

I thinking one solution for it. I am going to add manufacturer part number in Title tag rather than URL...

So, URL will construct with root category or sub category + Unique SKU number + product name.

What you think about it? thanks again!!

[RyanKent]

I am working on such a big eCommerce website with 7000+ products. Website is live since more than 3 months. But, Google have indexed only 94 URLs.

It is important to determine the root issue which is causing your pages not to be indexed. It is not going to be your URLs. Check the following:

1. Have you submitted a sitemap to Google? If not, do so as there are clearly some issues.

2. Have you performed a test crawl of your site? Use the SEOmoz crawler. You don't need a 100% complete report. You are trying to review your site for crawl errors which impact your whole site.

3. I would suggest examining your site's navigation. With only 1% of your site getting indexed, there may be a problem.

4. Do you have any content on your product pages? If you just throw up an image with a product name, the page will likely not be indexed.

5. Ensure your robots.txt file is not blocking pages which should be indexed.

6. Thoroughly examine your Google WMT for errors and issues.

[RyanKent]

My first suggestion is to drop the ".html" extension at the end of your URLs. It offers no value to you nor your site's users. It just makes the URLs longer and less readable.

My next suggestion is to separate words with hyphens. Use /home-furniture not /homefurniture

With respect to a part number, that is a disadvantage many larger sites have which smaller sites don't experience. Do you NEED to have a part number in the URL? Does it help your employees or customers? Or can you do well with just the product name? If a part number is required, I would at least recommend keeping it down to one number. Your example of "93630" seems fine but your other example of "slpt758-f13" is not desirable.

I would also try to work on your category and product names to ensure they don't duplicate each other. /market-umbrellas/california-umbrella seems unnecessary.

To sum it all up, I would suggest the following for your URLs based on the examples above:

www.vistastores.com/market-umbrellas/california-red

www.vistastores.com/home-furniture/winsome-wood

If product ids are required then add them as -93630

[CommercePundit]

Oh! Great.. First of all, thanks for your prompt reply.

Why I want to do this? That's big question for me. I am working on such a big eCommerce website with 7000+ products. Website is live since more than 3 months. But, Google have indexed only 94 URLs.

I have really big mind bubbles for it. I don't know what's going on with my site & How can I resolve it. My ultimate goal is to improve indexing and index maximum webpages of website.

I come to know about Google's search engine optimization starter guide and assumed that described points can help me to achieve me in same direction.

URL structure is also one part of that PDF version. So, I am going to think about it. I am also thinking about your suggestions.

[Theo-NL]

I personally don't think that changing your URL as you described will result in big increases in rankings on the organic search. Especially considering the work required (and the potential loss of incoming links to URLs you forget to redirect), I wouldn't recommend the change you've described.

If however, you really want to change the URLs, this is the structure I'd advice:

www.example.org/category-name/123-product-name

This allows people to cut a piece of the URL and land of your category overview page, shows them to what category a product belongs and keeps the amount of 'sub levels' to a minimum by including the id in the second level.