• seohunters9

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. URL for location pages

        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.

        URL for location pages

        On-Page Optimization
        3
        7
        1651
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Ferguson
          Ferguson last edited by

          Hello all

          We would like to create clean, easy URLs for our large list of Location pages.

          If there are a few URLs for each of the pages, am I right when I'm saying we would like this to be the canonical?

          Right now we would like the URL to be: For example
          Domain.com/locations/Columbus

          I have found some instances where there might be 2,3 or more locations in the same city,zip.

          My conclusion for these would be: adding their Branch id's on to the URL
          Domain.com/locations/Columbus/0304

          Is this an okay approach?

          We are unsure if the URL should have city,State,zip for SEO purposes?
          The pages will have all of this info in it's content
          BUT what would be best for SEO and ranking for a given location?

          Thank you for any info!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • MiriamEllis
            MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

            Good advice again from Chas!

            I think, given your situation, that the URLs you are using with the branch numbers are probably about as good as you can manage. Yes, it would be stronger for SEO if they could more keywords in them instead of just a branch number, but on a project this large, compromises sometimes have to be made.

            One other item to mention - you have listed 'geosynthetic' locations. This is not a term I'm familiar with, but just in case you are talking about virtual offices, it's important to know that Google does not accept these. No P.O. boxes, no virtual offices. Each location you list in Places must have a unique local area code phone number and unique dedicated physical street address.

            Hope this helps, and best of luck with the bulk upload!

            Miriam

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Ferguson
              Ferguson @Ferguson last edited by

              I feel once I obtain more information like type of service for the locations - this would be much better than the branch ID

              For example we have:
              Showrooms
              HVAC Locations
              Geosynthetic Locations

              These would be great to use like the dentist examples from above.

              Thank you for the videos and info on Google Places.  Great stuff for us to review!

              Nick

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • legalseo
                legalseo @Ferguson last edited by

                F-

                Google Places permits an upload of multiple business locations @ https://www.google.com/local/add/g?hl=en-US&gl=US#uploadfeed
                you may want to review this help page:
                Common issues that delay the bulk verification process:
                http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=173669
                This caveat may hinder a bulk upload:
                Multiple listings at the same physical location are not permitted within one feed. Please consolidate multiple services or businesses under one title.

                As for your example URL from an SEO perspective, underscores between words are a programming legacy from days when spaces could be misinterpreted between Unix and Windows servers and are not conducive to good SEO. With an underscore Google joins the two words and sees them that way so landing_page is seen as landingpage whereas landing-page is seen as landing page. See this Matt Cutts video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AQcSFsQyct8

                Is there any other way to differentiate locations (branch ID) that convey more meaningful information (from an SEO perspective) and that would permit you to utilize Google Places? A suite number, even if it's superfluous?
                C

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Ferguson
                  Ferguson @MiriamEllis last edited by

                  Thank you both

                  Yes, I found after going the street name approach we were finding long addresses, so it was looking spammy like you said.

                  Here is an example of our current Location Page - We are doing a huge project right now to redo the layout completely
                  http://www.ferguson.com/BranchPage/locations-finder/branch_landing_page.jsp?R=298&branch=0511

                  as you can see the URL is long and this is why we want to make it user friendly and easier, so the Locations can easily give them out to their customers.

                  An approach I am taking right now is
                  Ferguson.com/locations/Goshen/NY/0304      0304=the branch ID

                  This reason is because I am finding a few branch IDs have the same address, so the only difference they have is the Branch ID

                  Does this look clean?  It's not the approach we want to take.  I would like to differentiate them with their service, but I am not provided at this moment with this info.  There are over 1500 locations, but we are in the process of obtaining this info.

                  Somewhat off topic - Google Places, would one account allow for us to insert all of these locations? We should utilize Google Places Correct? My question is what is the approach for that?

                  Thank you all for your input - it is great help!

                  Nick

                  legalseo Ferguson 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • MiriamEllis
                    MiriamEllis Subject Expert last edited by

                    Hello Ferguson!

                    I agree with Chas on this that it's a little harder to answer without knowing the exact content. Most typically, I write URLs for city landing pages something like this:

                    whatever.com/city-state-service

                    For example, let's say the business is a mobile notary public in Berkeley, California. The URL might look like:

                    joenotary.com/berkeley-ca-mobile-notary

                    This would be for a business, and the landing pages might be for the different cities in which the business serves. Your situation is a little more complex with a single business with multiple locations in the same city and zip. Is your site a directory website? Or are you simply dealing with a single franchise's website? Perhaps you can give us a little more information.

                    At any rate, it sounds to me as if the only distinct items about the businesses would be their street addresses. How long are they? Would using them make them hugely long? What I'm describing would be something like this:

                    directory.com/joe-notary-123-centre-st

                    directory.com/joe-notary-39-brown-ave

                    a longer version would be:

                    directory.com/joe-notary-123-centre-st-boston-ma

                    It's not horribly long...but some businesses have really long street addresses with suite numbers and the like, so you'll have to judge whether an approach like this would start to look spammy.

                    Would this work for you? Has your question been answered? If not, please feel free to provide further details.

                    Miriam

                    Ferguson 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • legalseo
                      legalseo last edited by

                      Ferguson-

                      Hard to answer definitively without knowing your content/target. Numbers in your URL don't mean anything to SEs unless it's a keyword (like a ZIP, area code or model) - what does 0304 tell me or Google? You mention the possibility of multiple pages for a location, so if I assume the nature of the content for these pages is different I'd say you'd want to optimize the URLs to bolster your on page SEO. Let's say you have a site for dentists and the like, then your URLs might be:
                      Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/orthodontists
                      Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/dentists
                      Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/oral-surgeons

                      If the differences are purely location within a ZIP code for nearly identical stores (think Starbucks) then I'd let Google Places do the SEO work for you.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • lukegj

                        Is the URL Matching the Page Title Important?

                        Hello I have tried searching for an answer on this but I can't get a clear answer due to the results when searching for URL title. I have just launched our second Shopify site for one of our brands. My first site launched in 2014 but when I launched I didn't pay much heed to SEO for page titles, URLs, etc so have retrospectively fixed this over time. For my Shopify site just launching I want to get it as right as possible from the start (learning from mistakes). My question is regarding URLs and what my approach should be for better SEO. So, I have a page with a Title of Newton Leather Wallets, Purses, Card Holders & Glasses Cases and the URL is https://www.tumbleandhide.com/collections/newton-leather-wallets-card-holders It was my understanding that I should try and make the URL reflect the Page Title more accurately. The problem is that this takes the character count to 77. On other pages it can be in the 80s. Will the above link be better for SEO than say just https://www.tumbleandhide.com/collections/newton I am just wary of the URL's being too long as my Moz Site Crawl is returning a lot of URLs that are too long. Thanks in Advance.

                        On-Page Optimization | | lukegj
                        0
                      • viatrading1

                        URL Structure on Category Pages

                        Hi, Currently, we having the following URL Structure o our product pages: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/283/All_Products.html Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/4/Clothing.html Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/product/LOAD-HE-WOM/Assorted-High-End-Women-Clothing-Lots.html?cid=4 Since we are going to use another frontend system, we are thinking about re-working on this URL Structure, using something like this: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/ Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/ Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/product-title/ I understand this is better for SEO and user experience. However, we already have good traffic on the current URL Structure. Should we use same left-side filters on Category Pages as in All Products Page? Since we are using Faceted Navigation, when users filter the Category (e.g. Clothing) they will see same page as Clothing Category Page. Is that an issue for Duplicate Content? Since we are a wholesale company - I understand is using "/wholesale/products/" in URL for all product pages a good idea? If so, should we avoid word "wholesale" in product-title to avoid repeated word in URL? For us, SKU in URL helps the company employees and maybe some clients identify the link. However, what do you think of using the SEO-friendly product-title, and 301 redirect it to www.viatrading.com/BRTA-LN-DISHRACKS/, so 1st link is only used by company members and Canonicalized 2nd is the only one seen by general public? Thank you,

                        On-Page Optimization | | viatrading1
                        0
                      • Aquatell

                        Why are http and https pages showing different domain/page authorities?

                        My website www.aquatell.com was recently moved to the Shopify platform.  We chose to use the http domain, because we didn't want to change too much, too quickly by moving to https.  Only our shopping cart is using https protocol.  We noticed however, that https versions of our non-cart pages were being indexed, so we created canonical tags to point the https version of a page to the http version.  What's got me puzzled though, is when I use open site explorer to look at domain/page authority values, I get different scores for the http vs. https version.  And the https version is always better.  Example:  http://www.aquatell.com DA = 21 and https://www.aquatell.com DA = 27.  Can somebody please help me make sense of this?  Thanks,

                        On-Page Optimization | | Aquatell
                        1
                      • Matthew_smart

                        Home page keyword in url

                        I have been looking into SEO for a few weeks now trying to perfect a homepage. Going through various sources on MOZ, and other examples out there on the internet, I keep seeing that you should have your keyword in the URL of the page. The homepage is the page most people want to rank the highest in google searches, however, you cannot put the keyword in the URL as most home page URLs are simply /. Should I actually make the home like this: www.example.com/key-word-example? I would imagine this would not be the normal for many users and would seem like it's not the home page.

                        On-Page Optimization | | Matthew_smart
                        0
                      • Jacob_A

                        Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword

                        Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!

                        On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A
                        2
                      • MeasureEverything

                        Should I use an acronym in my URL?

                        I know that Google understands various acronyms. Example: If I search for CRM System, it knows i'm searching for a customer relationship management system. However, will it recognize less known acronyms? I have a page geared specifically for SAP data archiving for human capital management systems. For those in the industry, they simply call it HCM. Here is how I view my options: Option #1: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/human-capital-management Option #2: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm Option #3: www.mywebsite.com/sap-data-archiving/hcm-human-capital-management With option #3, i'm capturing the acronym AND the full phrase. This doesn't make my URL overly long either. Of course, in my content i'll reference both. What does everyone else think about the URL? -Alex

                        On-Page Optimization | | MeasureEverything
                        0
                      • tprg

                        Home page and category page target same keyword

                        Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian

                        On-Page Optimization | | tprg
                        0
                      • HrishikeshKarov

                        Home page or landing page?

                        Hello, I want to ask a question related to that - Should we put keywords in the home page title if we wish to position another landing page better for particular keywords? I have read in one website about SEO that it's good the main keywords of your website to be positioned in homepage title also. f.e. Let's say we have website about web-design and our company is named Company Ltd. The title of the home page is "Company Ltd.  - Web design, SEO, etc" We have also another inner page named "Web design | Company Ltd.". So should we leave the first page name only "Company Ltd." and the landing page's name "Web design | Company Ltd." . I don't know if they both have the same keyword in their title they won't compete with each other.

                        On-Page Optimization | | HrishikeshKarov
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      • Digital Marketers
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.