Site architecture for spatial location: Countries, states, regions: How deep should I go?
-
Hi,
Based on the answers to my question about how to put the spatial location in the URL I'm now thinking about whether and how to flatten my information architecture.
My main content is trails and courses. For both categories I have most content for Vancouver, BC (over 100 trails). I have some trails from California and more trails from other areas in BC (5-20 trails for 3 separate counties).
My current site architecture is:
trails -> country -> state/province -> county/regional district -> list of trails.
So a trail page is 5 clicks away from the root.
My course structure is:
courses -> course list
(I have far fewer courses but need to start structuring them)
I did a search for site:example.com and found that my course pages rank most highly (probably because I have more inbound links for them) then I get workout pages then I get trail pages last of all.
I want to be set up to scale for the rest of the world but I think I have to start winning in my local area first.
What ideas might be good for a better site architecture?
I'm thinking of doing this:
trails -> location page -> list of trails for county.
The location page would be a single page with a tree hierarchy from country to county - nicely styled to help the user. Something like:
Canada
-> British Columbia
-> -> Greater Vancouver
-> -> Okanagan-Similikameen
-> -> Squamish-Lilloet
United States
-> California
-> -> Marin
I would make the urls be /trail/ca-bc-greater-vancouver/baden-powell-trail.
I'm considering whether /trails/ca-bc/ (i.e. to get the state) should return a list of the counties. I'm worried about duplicate content for doing this.
Curiously, my competitors don't have this structure at all. Access to their trails is by searching.
Thoughts?
Many thanks in advance
-
You are on the right track.
If you read this document you may get a better understanding, it has some outdated stuuf about in links not being able to hurt, you, but the stuf about page rank and links is invaluable knowlage.
http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html
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
-
If I host same video on my site which my manufacturer hosted on his site will be consider as duplicate?
Hello All, My manufacturer hosted video's on his site now if I host same video on my ecommerce site will it be consider as duplicate? any penalty ? Any suggestion pls? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | pragnesh96390 -
Multi-Locations Business Internet Presence
We are at a crossroad and it's time to decide which direction to travel. We had 4 physical locations represented by 3 websites, August 1st we now have 6 addresses and are going to redesign our websites. Heritage Printing .com is our primary and does very well in DC for printing & signage. Heritage Printing Charlotte .com does well in NC for signs. How would you proceed? Build 2 more websites for a total of 5: Heritage Custom Signs & Heritage Custom Signs DC .coms Build a unified site under Heritage Printing .com (w/ subdomains or locations folders) I fear losing our Internet Presence and Page Rank w/ Google by unifying but also fear fueling the ever growing fragmentation of our brand. FYI: We recently Trade Marked Heritage Printing & our logo So fellow Mozzers, what do you recommend and how would you proceed? TY in advance KJr
On-Page Optimization | | KevnJr0 -
SEO for a site in development
We've recently taken on a new client for an initial 6 months for SEO (until their new site is going live) to help build traffic to the site. They are currently getting a new website built so don't want work done on their current site... but due to the current structure it is making it difficult for us to improve rankings for a number of keywords. They are essentially a booking engine for services across the UK so it is just a home page with a search filtering through their services, locations and dates which leads to a results page. It is a combination of services and locations we need to target keywords for but there are no appropriate landing pages due to the site layout. The one thing they are happy for us to work on is the blog, so my question is would it be best to create landing pages on the blog targeting keywords such as 'sports massages in London' and build links to these pages? Then when it is time for the new site, with new appropriate landing pages, simply 301 redirect these pages? If anyone has any input on this idea or suggestions for other ways about it we'd be delighted to hear from you Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Will_Craig0 -
New jobboard: Can redirecting folder (site.com/jobboard) to subdomain (jobboard.site.com) hurt SEO?
Hi there, I'm planning to implement a jobboard on my website which needs to be installed on a subdomain (jobboard.site.com) but I'd really like to use site.com/jobboard for promoting this jobboard (jobboard collects external industry jobs). Are there any possible disadvantages when I set up a 301 redirect from jobboard.site.com to site.com/jobboard? Also: What if I want to move this jobboard to a unique domain one day (e.g. jobboard-industry-xy.com), Would that be tricky (as I'd basically have to redirect the folder-to-subdomain redirect to an external domain and therefore get a folder-to-subdomain-to-external-domain redirect...)? Cheers, Thomas
On-Page Optimization | | stl990 -
Changing my site (dramatically)
I am about to do a complete site change. I am going to WordPress. I am ranked #2 on SERPS. Will I lose rank for changing everything on my site? I have 500 pages indexed but I am about to have 30k indexed. It is a real estate site that is switching from a "framed" solution, to a listing indexed solution. If I make good use of my keywords etc (on site optimization) will I be at risk of losing risk just for changing my site?
On-Page Optimization | | JML11790 -
Site Downtime - Will pages be reindexed?
I recently had site downtime of about 10 days for a site I'm working on which is about 6 months old. There were naturally many page not found errors in webmaster tools as google had tried to crawl the site during the downtime but I've noticed that google has now dropped some of the pages. Are they likely to be reindexed? Google has crawled some of my pages today but as yet the ones that have been dropped from the index haven't reappeared. (the site has been live again for a week). Should they reappear when the pages are next crawled?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
SEO Site Planning Tool?
Does anyone know of a good SEO Site planning tool? I see that SEOBOOK has something that looked interesting but they want $300/mo! Thanks in advance! Andy
On-Page Optimization | | MaxOtto0 -
Should I show and allow following of deep navigation links?
Hello mozzers, I am currently designing an e-commerce system for various companies, my pilot being www.containerpadlocks.co.uk. I you look on the left in the navigation, you will see only the top level categories are visible (and in the html). Sub categories are only shown if viewing a parent category, or a product in that category/subcategory. My question would be, should I be listing all my subcategories in that navigation (hidden from the user) to allow Google to index my pages easily, and will this promote more PageRank and internal links for my site, or will this just dilute my page juice? Many Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | jcarter
James0