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.
Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO
-
Hi,
I have two questions.
Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords?
Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions.
My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder.
Thanks in advance,
Sam
-
Thanks. One more question: does this also mean that the main page www.example.com/index.php (whether the index.php is shown to the user or not) gets all the same domain authority as the domain itself (www.example.com) as it is the main page?
-
Choose a domain and stick with it, then build pages out from there. Redirect the non-www to the www (if this is what you choose to go with) and forget about the rest... redirect site-wide.
Admittedly I'm simplifying it for two reasons: 1.) I'm not quite sure I get it, this is rather confusing and 2.) it is that simple.
You want a domain and then you want pages and subdirectories targeting your keywords. That's it that's all. I would not build links for the non-www if you are going to redirect for the www. Build links for the domain you settle on.
I'm not sure I'm helping but hope so!
-
Thanks a lot for your comments and advice, now things are starting to get more clear for me. However, I have one more question. I have now completed a detailed level of analysis and I discovered the following.
Our company is having these domains (same structure as in these):
When you go to either of these addresses, it is directed by using 301 to the following URL: http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services (no external linking root domains)
In addition, in the past some part of the link building has been made to http://www.namegroup.com (15 linking root domains), some to http://namegroup.com (1 linking root domain), some to www.name-group.com (6 linking root domains), some to http://namegroup.com/en/main (2 linking root domains). And now all is directed by using 301 to http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services (no external linking root domains). These pages have been the main page at the time these links were created.
It would make the most sense for me to start using www.namegroup.com as the main URL (as this URL has the most linking root domains), and then redirect all the rest here by using 301. And when possible, change the link in the rest of the linking domains to direct to www.namegroup.com
It is quite a big mess now, and I would like to bring some order and consistency here (also use in the future only this form). Why I am wondering whether I should make this, is that since I optimized the title tags and changed the URL for the current one (http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services) some weeks ago, we are ranking very well in Google for some of the most important keywords that we now have in the title tag and URL (we are in first page of SERP, in third and sixth place). I think it is mostly because of optimizing the title tags (but perhaps there is effect of the URL change as well).
Should I still do the change, and start using www.namegroup.com as the main domain, and redirect all others by using 301 there? What do you think?
If I would not change anything, and would keep the current main page URL, should I focus my link building for the URL http://namegroup.com or http://namegroup.com/en/accounting-outsourcing-and-legal-services? Somehow I feel like I would not like to focus the link building for the current URL, in case we decide to change it in the future (it is also quite long) and would prefer to focus link building for http://namegroup.com or www.namegroup.com.
Thank you in advance for your valuable comments.
Best regards
Sam
-
I agree with Chris and Jesse here!
For question one, you should not do this just because you want to have keywords in your URL as Google is more looking in to the quality of content that is available on the site instead of relaying only on keywords based domains and URLs. You can also go with the Jesse’s idea to create an internal page that contains keywords you want!
For question 2 I believe it’s your I will not comment until you asked me to move to sub domain.... sub folders are fine but Google treats sub domains as a separate domain but for sub folder both versions are just fine to me!
Hope this helps!
-
Sam, from an SEO standpoint, there's no need to jump through any hoops in order to get keyword into your URLs as the value that that brings is negligible and still decreasing. On the other hand, it can bring value in the form of click throughs once the result makes near the top of the the search results.
As far as the folders and URLs go, a URL that shows the directory (folder) but no page name is simply the default page for that directory. Just as the /index.php isn't usually shown in the URL for a domiain's homepage (the default page for the domain), the /index.php is often not shown in the URL for the default page in a directory.
-
Question 1: No! Why not just create the internal page and have it target the specific keyword? Your homepage is your brand, not a product/service page. Those are internal. They will rank for whatever you are targeting (if your SEO campaign is strong). Why are you worried about what your homepage ranks for?
Short answer: No. Make internal product/service pages targeting specific keywords and do not redirect your home page.
Question 2: Huh? Those two examples seemed exactly the same to me. Are you asking why some pages will show a sub directory and some pages will show the html page in the URL? If so, it's all in your structure. It doesn't really matter which way you wanna do it but having multiple directories may give you the opportunity to attach keyword targets such as "example.com/services/stuff-i-do.html" as opposed to "example.com/stuff-i-do.html"
The former example will bring the word "services" into your string.. IF you are trying to get your page to just read "example.com/services" then just create that directory and drop an index page in.
Hope this answers your questions or at least comes close.
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
-
Advise on the right way to block country specific users but not block Googlebot - and not be seen to be cloaking. Help please!
Hi, I am working on the SEO of an online gaming platform - a platform that can only be accessed by people in certain countries, where the games and content are legally allowed.
International SEO | | MarkCanning
Example: The games are not allowed in the USA, but they are allowed in Canada. Present Situation:
Presently when a user from the USA visits the site they get directed to a restricted location page with the following message: RESTRICTED LOCATION
Due to licensing restrictions, we can't currently offer our services in your location. We're working hard to expand our reach, so stay tuned for updates! Because USA visitors are blocked Google which primarily (but not always) crawls from the USA is also blocked, so the company webpages are not being crawled and indexed. Objective / What we want to achieve: The website will have multiple region and language locations. Some of these will exist as standalone websites and others will exist as folders on the domain. Examples below:
domain.com/en-ca [English Canada]
domain.com/fr-ca [french Canada]
domain.com/es-mx [spanish mexico]
domain.com/pt-br [portugese brazil]
domain.co.in/hi [hindi India] If a user from USA or another restricted location tries to access our site they should not have access but should get a restricted access message.
However we still want google to be able to access, crawl and index our pages. Can i suggest how do we do this without getting done for cloaking etc? Would this approach be ok? (please see below) We continue to work as the present situation is presently doing, showing visitors from the USA a restricted message.
However rather than redirecting these visitors to a restricted location page, we just black out the page and show them a floating message as if it were a model window.
While Googlebot would be allowed to visit and crawl the website. I have also read that it would be good to put paywall schema on each webpage to let Google know that we are not cloaking and its a restricted paid page. All public pages are accessible but only if the visitor is from a location that is not restricted Any feedback and direction that can be given would be greatly appreciated as i am new to this angle of SEO. Sincere thanks,0 -
International SEO - Targeting US and UK markets
Hi folks, i have a client who is based in italy and they set up a site that sells travel experiences in the sout of Italy (the site currently sit on a server in Italy). The site has been set up as gTLDs: www.example.com They only want to target the US and the UK market to promote their travel experiences and the site has only the english version (the site does not currently offer an italian version). If they decide to go for the gTLDs and not actually change to a ccTLDs (which would be ideal from my point of view) how are the steps to be taken to set this up correctly on GSC? They currently only have one property registered on GSC: www.exapmple.com therefore i guess the next steps are: Add new property - www.example.com/uk and and set up geo targeting for UK Existing property - www.example.com/ set up geo targeting for US In case the client does not have the budget to optimise the content for american and british languages, would still make sense to have 2 separate property in GSC (example.com for US market and example.com/uk for UK market)? Few considerations: Add canonical tag to avoid duplicate content across the two versions of the site (in the event there is no budget to optimise the content for US and UK market)? Thank you all in advance for looking into this David
International SEO | | Davide19840 -
Direct traffic is up 2100% (due to a bot/crawler I believe)
Hi, The direct traffic to website www.webgain.dk has increased by over 2100% recently. I can see that most of it is from US (my target audience is in Denmark and the website is in danish).
International SEO | | WebGain
What can I do about this? All this traffic gives my website a bounce rate of 99.91% for direct traffic. I believe it is some sort of bot/crawler. 2100percentboost.png0 -
URL Structure - Homepage, Country and State Pages
Hello, I am creating a website (or websites if best format) that will have state-specific boating license courses for every state in the US, Canada and Australia. I would like the content to be available on the website in English, French and Spanish. I want to be the global leader in providing boat test courses. For the (1) homepage, (2) country pages, and (3) state pages, what is best SEO format I should use for:
International SEO | | Monologix
(a) URL structure
(b) "href lang" code
(c) rel canonical code
(d) will meta content with non-English pages need to also be in the non-English language of that page? Also, what server company do you recommend I host my website with? I am a non-programmer and learning SEO, so any and all help will be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much in advance!!!0 -
Does Keyword and Location Matter?
Hi Everyone, I'm always learning, but here's a question. I would like to know if keyword and location truly matter. For example, I've been trying to rank my website for a LONG time for a UK English term. My site is hosted in the US. My site has great content and internal and external links using the keyword. I cannot seem to climb the SERPs although my "American" keywords do fine and I see results. If anyone wants to take a look, that would be great. My website is JourneyBeyondTravel.com and I wish to rank for "Morocco Holidays" (I am at about #20 currently). I am also having trouble with "Morocco travel" although I have continuously ranked well for "Morocco tours" and "trips." Along this same line, I've been doing some quality guest posting and blogging. I've used longer phrase-type keywords (3-5 words) in the article text that have keyword terms in them. Should keywords be varied like this? How long until I see results? And, should I look for blogs in different countries to keep things balanced (such as blogging on .co.uk sites so that I can get link juice for UK keywords). Thanks again! Thomas
International SEO | | journeybeyondtravel0 -
Is .in domain affecting international traffic inflow to my site?
My holiday website http://seekandhide.in/ was completed and went live in Feb 2012. Last month I got 83% traffic from India and 3-5% each from USA and UK. The rest is a mixed bag from other countries. This is largely the trend since the last 3-4 months. I want to attract more organic traffic from UK and rest of Europe. My SEO consultant says that with a .in domain that will be difficult. My website currently features unique holiday properties in India that typically attract European tourists so I don't think it is a product issue. But both website visits and sales enquiries remain primarily Indian even though total number of visitors have increased gradually over the last 6 months.. My queries are 1. Is it only the .in domain that's affecting inflow of international traffic? 2. Is there anything that I can do to offset it? 3. I own seekandhide.co.uk too. Is there something I can do with that site without building a whole different website there? If I shift completely to .co.uk, I will have the same issue of being geographically limited and end up losing Indian traffic. 4. Is there something else that is not ok on the site that I am missing? 5. Advice that I get from a lot of consultants is to buy seekandhideindia.com but I plan to add international properties in a couple of years so that name would limit my appeal. Thanks in advance! Sudha
International SEO | | Sudha_Mathew0 -
Correct Hreflang & Canonical Implementation for Multilingual Site
OK, 2 primary questions for a multilingual site. This specific site has 2 language so I'll use that for the examples. 1 - Self-Referencing Hreflang Tag Necessary? The first is regarding the correct implementation of hreflang, and whether or not I should have a self-referencing hreflang tag. In other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), I am uncertain whether the source code should contain the second line below: Obviously the Spanish version should reference the English version, but does it need to reference itself? I have seen both versions implemented, with seemingly good results, but I want to know the best practice if it exists. 2 - Canonical of Current Language or Default Language? The second questions is regarding which canonical to use on the secondary language pages. I am aware of the update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines recently that state not to use canonical, but they say not to do it because everyone was messing it up, not because it shouldn't be done. So, in other words, if I am looking at the source code for http://www.example.com/es/ (our Spanish subfolder), which of the two following canonicals is correct? OR For this question, you can assume that (A) the English version of the site is our default and (B) the content is identical. Thanks guys, feel free to ask any qualifiers you think are relevant.
International SEO | | KaneJamison1 -
Country specific landing pages
I have a client who wants to put a re-direct on his landing pages based on the visitors IP address. The landing page will be a sub domain relevant to the country their IP is located in. I am a little concerned this will effect the SEO. Appreciate any advice. Dylan 🙂
International SEO | | gomyseo0