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 Structure for Directory Site
-
We have a directory that we're building and we're not sure if we should try to make each page an extension of the root domain or utilize sub-directories as users narrow down their selection. What is the best practice here for maximizing your SERP authority?
Choice #1 - Hyphenated Architecture (no sub-folders):
- State Page /state/
- City Page /city-state/
- Business Page /business-city-state/
4) Location Page /locationname-city-state/
or....
Choice #2 - Using sub-folders on drill down:
- State Page /state/
- City Page /state/city
- Business Page /state/city/business/
4) Location Page /locationname-city-state/
Again, just to clarify, I need help in determining what the best methodology is for achieving the greatest SEO benefits. Just by looking it would seem that choice #1 would work better because the URL's are very clear and SEF. But, at the same time it may be less intuitive for search. I'm not sure.
What do you think?
-
Word Separators
Avoid hyphens. Hyphens detract from credibility and can act as a spam indicator. (This is a direct quote from the SEOMoz blog)Also, Google webmaster tools lets you set geo-location preferences to sub directories. You can do this by creating a new "site" listing in google webmaster central that also includes the subdirectory, so in addition to having a www.domain.com listing you would create an additional listing for www.domain.com/it (Italy) or www.domain.com/uk (for the UK) and then set the geo location accordingly. When you're creating backlinks and tracking traffic it's logical to do it per location when you are running a directory so that's another argument in favour of sub-directories.
Sub directories are standard practice, however I should mention that if you are aiming for user generated content in this directory and if the topics are broadly varied then you should also consider sub domains. Separating user generated content into its own subdomain allows Panda to penalize low-quality content and leaves the quality content untouched.
Hope this helps
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
-
How important is it to add hyphens between words in URL Permalink Structure?
We have an issue with our URL Permalink Structures for dynamically generated pages on our website. As we generated hundreds of pages, it does not automatically Space the Words in the Permalink Structure . For example, if we have a product name Under Armour Fire Basketball Shoe , it will show up in the url as: "mywebsite.com/underarmourfire-basketballshoe" vs "mywebsite.com/under-armour-fire-basketball-shoe" How important is it that the URL includes these spaces between each word in the permalink?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NJ-Keith0 -
URL structure - Page Path vs No Page Path
We are currently re building our URL structure for eccomerce websites. We have seen a lot of site removing the page path on product pages e.g. https://www.theiconic.co.nz/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html versus what would normally be https://www.theiconic.co.nz/womens-clothing-tops/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html Should we be removing the site page path for a product page to keep the url shorter or should we keep it? I can see that we would loose the hierarchy juice to a product page but not sure what is the right thing to do.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ashcastle0 -
URL Structure & Best Practice when Facing 4+ Sub-levels
Hi. I've spent the last day fiddling with the setup of a new URL structure for a site, and I can't "pull the trigger" on it. Example: - domain.com/games/type-of-game/provider-name/name-of-game/ Specific example: - arcade.com/games/pinball/deckerballs/starshooter2k/ The example is a good description of the content that I have to organize. The aim is to a) define url structure, b) facilitate good ux, **c) **create a good starting point for content marketing and SEO, avoiding multiple / stuffing keywords in urls'. The problem? Not all providers have the same type of game. Meaning, that once I get past the /type-of-game/, I must write a new category / page / content for /provider-name/. No matter how I switch the different "sub-levels" around in the url, at one point, the provider-name doesn't fit as its in need of new content, multiple times. The solution? I can skip "provider-name". The caveat though is that I lose out on ranking for provider keywords as I don't have a cornerstone content page for them. Question: Using the URL structure as outlined above in WordPress, would you A) go with "Pages", or B) use "Posts"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan-Louis0 -
Site structure: Any issues with 404'd parent folders?
Is there any issue with a 404'd parent folder in a URL? There's no links to the parent folder and a parent folder page never existed. For example say I have the following pages w/ content: /famous-dogs/lassie/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dsbud
/famous-dogs/snoopy/
/famous-dogs/scooby-doo/ But I never (and maybe never plan to) created a general **/famous-dogs/ **page. Sitemaps.xml does not link to it, nor does any page on my site. Is there any concerns with doing this? Am I missing out on any sort of value that might pass to a parent folder?0 -
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
URL structure change and xml sitemap
At the end of April we changed the url structure of most of our pages and 301 redirected the old pages to the new ones. The xml sitemaps were also updated at that point to reflect the new url structure. Since then Google has not indexed the new urls from our xml sitemaps and I am unsure of why. We are at 4 weeks since the change, so I would have thought they would have indexed the pages by now. Any ideas on what I should check to make sure pages are indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ang0 -
How can I get a list of every url of a site in Google's index?
I work on a site that has almost 20,000 urls in its site map. Google WMT claims 28,000 indexed and a search on Google shows 33,000. I'd like to find what the difference is. Is there a way to get an excel sheet with every url Google has indexed for a site? Thanks... Mike
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Product URL structure for a marketplace model
Hello All. I run an online marketplace start-up that has around 10000 products listed from around 1000+ sellers. We are a similar model to etsy/ebay in the sense that we provide a platform but sellers to list products and sell them. I have a URL structure question. I have read http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-define-best-url-structure-for-product-pages which seems to show everyone suggests to use Products: products/category/product-name Categories: products/category as the structure for product pages. Because we are a marketplace (our category structure has multiple tiers sometimes up to 3) our sellers choose a category for products to go in. How we have handled this before is we have used: Products: products/last-tier-category-chosen/product-name (eg: /products/sweets-and-snacks/fluffy-marshmallows) Categories: products/category (eg: /products/sweets-and-snacks) However we have two issues with this: The categories can sometimes change, or users can change them which means the links completely change and undo any link building work built up. The urls can get a bit long and am worried that the most important data (the fluffy marshmallow that reflects in the page title and content) is left till too late in the URL. As a result we plan to change our URL structure (we are going through a rebuild anyhow so losing old links is not an issue here) so that the new structure was: Products: products/product-name(eg: /products/fluffy-marshmallows) Categories: products/category (eg: /products/sweets-and-snacks) My concern about doing this however, and question here, is whether this willnegatively impact the "structure" of pages when google crawls our marketplace.Because "fluffy marshmallows" will no longer technically fit into the url structure of "sweets and snacks". I dont know if this would have a negative impact or not. FYI etsy (one of the largest marketplace models in the world) us the latter approach and do not have categories in product urls, eg: listing/42003836/vintage-french-industrial-inspired-side Any ideas on this? Many thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LiamPatterson0