Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does it hurt your SEO to have an inaccessible directory in your site structure?
-
Due to CMS constraints, there may be some nodes in our site tree that are inaccessible and will automatically redirect to their parent folder.
Here's an example: www.site.com/folder1/folder2/content, /folder2 redirects to /folder1. This would only be for the single URL itself, not the subpages (i.e. /folder1/folder2/content and anything below that would be accessible).
Is there any real risk in this approach from a technical SEO perspective? I'm thinking this is likely a non-issue but I'm hoping someone with more experience can confirm.
Another potential option is to have /folder2 accessible (it would be 100% identical to /folder1, long story) and use a canonical tag to point back to /folder1. I'm still waiting to hear if this is possible.
Thanks in advance!
-
Do you know what the redirect type is (301 or 302)? If it is a 301, I wouldn't worry about it. If it is a 302, I'd try and get that changed. Either way, it is unlikely to make a big impact on your site.
-
From what I understand, it sounds like your CMS creates a bunch of 404 pages that then auto-bounce back to their parent folder. But that these are phantom pages that don't exist? My recommendation is to use robots.txt to no follow, no index. If they are blank pages, you can also add that to the blank page's meta data. Canonical tags are always a good idea.
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
-
Using a Reverse Proxy and 301 redirect to appear Sub Domain as Sub Directory - what are the SEO Risks?
We’re in process to move WordPress blog URLs from subdomains to sub-directory. We aren’t moving blog physically, but using reverse proxy and 301 redirection to do this. Blog subdomain URL is https://blog.example.com/ and destination sub-directory URL is https://www.example.com/blog/ Our main website is e-commerce marketplace which is YMYL site. This is on Windows server. Due to technical reasons, we can’t physically move our WordPress blog to the main website. Following is our Technical Setup Setup a reverse proxy at https://www.example.com/blog/ pointing to https://blog.example.com/ Use a 301 redirection from https://blog.example.com/ to https://www.example.com/blog/ with an exception if a traffic is coming from main WWW domain then it won’t redirect. Thus, we can eliminate infinite loop. Change all absolute URLs to relative URLs on blog Change the sitemap URL from https://blog.example.com/sitemap.xml to https://www.example.com/blog/sitemap.xml and update all URLs mentioned within the sitemap. SEO Risk Evaluation We have individual GA Tracking ID and individual Google Search Console Properties for main website and blog. We will not merge them. Keep them separate as they are. Keeping this in mind, I am evaluating SEO Risks factors Right now when we receive traffic from main website to blog (or vice versa) then it is considered as referral traffic and new cookies are set for Google Analytics. What’s going to happen when its on the same domain? Which type of settings change should I do in Blog’s Google Search Console? (A). Do I need to request “Change of Address” in the Blog’s search console property? (B). Should I re-submit the sitemap? Do I need to re-submit the blog sitemap from the https://www.example.com/ Google Search Console Property? Main website is e-commerce marketplace which is YMYL website, and blog is all about content. So does that impact SEO? Will this dilute SEO link juice or impact on the main website ranking because following are the key SEO Metrices. (A). Main website’s Avg Session Duration is about 10 minutes and bounce rate is around 30% (B). Blog’s Avg Session Duration is 33 seconds and bounce rate is over 92%
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joshibhargav_200 -
Could another site copying my content hurt my ranking?
Earlier this week I asked why a page of mine might not be ranking locally. (https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/community/q/what-could-be-stopping-us-from-ranking-locally). Maybe this might be part of the answer – another firm has copied huge chunks of my website copy: **My company: **https://idearocketanimation.com/video-production-company/ The other company: http://studio3dm.com/studio3dm-com/video/ Could this be causing my page to not rank? And is there anything I can do about it, other than huff and puff to the other firm? (Which I am already doing.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wagster0 -
Does cache-control : private hurt SEO?
Hi, I recently found I can no longer view our web pages in Google's cache. I get 404 errors. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ashop.nordstrom.com%2Fc%2Fwomens-shoes&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&oq=cache%3Ashop.nordstrom.com%2Fc%2Fwomens-shoes&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.3575j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 I did a fetch and render in Search Console and found our header includes a "cache-control: private" entry. The 404's started happening recently. Would this response be the culprit? If Google cannot cache the website, is this bad for SEO? On the surface of it, it sounds bad.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shop.nordstrom0 -
Taxonomy question - best approach for site structure
Hi all, I'm working on a dentist's website and want some advice on the best way to lay out the navigation. I would like to know which structure will help the site work naturally. I feel the second example would be better as it would focus the 'power' around the type of treatment and get that to rank better. .com/assessment/whitening
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee159
.com/assessment/straightening
.com/treatment/whitening
.com/treatment/straightening or .com/whitening/assessment
.com/straightening/assessment
.com/whitening/treatment
.com/straightening/treatment Please advise, thanks.0 -
CDN for SEO (or not)?
Does CDN impact on SEO or not? There seems conflicting ideas as to whether they impact positively or negatively, I realise that if the page loads quicker this is a good thing for SEO and usability of course. Does Google see CDN as just cheating and a get-around for not doing the work from the ground up and using good hosting etc? Do you have any direct experience? All constructive input much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman101 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
Wordpress Blog in 2 languages. How to SEO or structure it?
Hi Moz community, I have got a wordpress blog currently in the spanish language. I want to create the same blog content but in english version. (manually translate it to english instead of using translation service such as Google Translate). How should i structure the blog for SEO? How will it work? Any structure markups i should know about? Any examples? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
Does blocking foreign country IP traffic to site, hurt my SEO / US Google rankings?
I have a website is is only of interest to US visitors. 99% (at least) of Adsense income is from the US. But I'm getting constant attempts by hackers to login to my admin account. I have countermeasures fo combat that and am initiating others. But here's my question: I am considering not allowing any non US, or at least any non-North American, traffic to the site via a Wordpress plugin that does this. I know it will not affect my business negatively, directly. However, are there any ramifications of the Google bots of these blocked countries not being able to access my site? Does it affect the rankings of my site in the US Google searches. At the very least I could block China, Russia and some eastern European countries.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bizzer0