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.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • 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
    • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. URL Structure & Best Practice when Facing 4+ Sub-levels

    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 & Best Practice when Facing 4+ Sub-levels

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    4
    626
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Dan-Louis
      Dan-Louis last edited by

      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"

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Seenlyst
        Seenlyst last edited by

        I'm not quite sure if I'm correct since I'm not in the gaming industry, but I don't think there would be many benefits in terms of SEO for having provider name in URL. There are a few reasons that I wouldn't add provider name in URL:

        • Your URL will be much longer, Moz suggests to keep it within 75 words, including https://www.
        • I'm guessing the more important keyword here is the game name, by having publisher name you're moving your important keyword further from the root domain
        • It cost more time and effort to manage and create content for each provider page/content
        • Provider name is a branded keyword, and it would be hard for you to outrank them in their brand name
        • doesn't give much SEO value

        When I search for "Battlefield 1", almost all the top results have "Battlefield 1" close to their root domain.
        https://www.windowscentral.com/battlefield-1-2018
        https://www.gamespot.com/battlefield-1/
        https://www.g2a.com/en/battlefield-1-origin-key-global-i10000016618004
        https://www.origin.com/sgp/en-us/store/battlefield/battlefield-1#store-page-section-criticalacclaim

        I think at the end it depends on what keyword you're trying to rank for and does having the publisher name helps.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Dan-Louis
          Dan-Louis last edited by

          Thank you for both your time and effort in response to my thread, Joseph.

          The reason I do not want to use WordPress and its Tags-function, is that it is a WP-function, and not something beneficial to SEO at all. On the contrary, tags create new URLs, duplicate content, and thin content as well.

          Continuing on your stating that "relevant content to the keywords", does this mean I can skip the "provider-name" in the url?

          I've seen competitors that includes the provider in URL, and they outrank others that do not. I recognize the fact that the URL is not the only signal / factor here, but I'm seeing a trend, hence my question.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Seenlyst
            Seenlyst last edited by

            Hey Dan,

            though keyword in URL can be helpful it wasn't that much of a factor in ranking. If your page has relevant content to the keywords Google will be able to tell. Alternatively, since you're using Wordpress, will "tag" be another solution?

            Regards,
            Joseph Yap

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

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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

            • kirin44355

              Mass URL changes and redirecting those old URLS to the new. What is SEO Risk and best practices?

              Hello good people of the MOZ community, I am looking to do a mass edit of URLS on content pages within our sites. The way these were initially setup was to be unique by having the date in the URL which was a few years ago and can make evergreen content now seem dated. The new URLS would follow a better folder path style naming convention and would be way better URLS overall. Some examples of the **old **URLS would be https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Skates/buying-guide-9-17-2012,default,pg.html
              https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Kids-Inline-Skates/buying-guide-11-13-2012,default,pg.html
              https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Hockey-Skates/buying-guide-9-3-2012,default,pg.html
              https://www.inlineskates.com/Buying-Guide-for-Aggressive-Skates/buying-guide-7-19-2012,default,pg.html The new URLS would look like this which would be a great improvement https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Skates,default,pg.html
              https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Kids-Inline-Skates,default,pg.html
              https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Inline-Hockey-Skates,default,pg.html
              https://www.inlineskates.com/Learn/Buying-Guide-for-Aggressive-Skates,default,pg.html My worry is that we do rank fairly well organically for some of the content and don't want to anger the google machine. The way I would be doing the process would be to edit the URLS to the new layout, then do the redirect for them and push live. Is there a great SEO risk to doing this? 
              Is there a way to do a mass "Fetch as googlebot" to reindex these if I do say 50 a day? I only see the ability to do 1 URL at a time in the webmaster backend. 
              Is there anything else I am missing? I believe this change would overall be good in the long run but do not want to take a huge hit initially by doing something incorrectly. This would be done on 5- to a couple hundred links across various sites I manage. Thanks in advance,
              Chris Gorski

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kirin44355
              0
            • ennovators

              Replace dynamic paramenter URLs with static Landing Page URL - faceted navigation

              Hi there, got a quick question regarding faceted navigation. If a specific filter (facet) seems to be quite popular for visitors. Does it make sense to replace a dynamic URL e.x http://www.domain.com/pants.html?a_type=239 by a static, more SEO friendly URL e.x http://www.domain.com/pants/levis-pants.html by creating a proper landing page for it. I know, that it is nearly impossible to replace all variations of this parameter URLs by static ones but does it generally make sense to do this for the most popular facets choose by visitors. Or does this cause any issues? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ennovators
              0
            • McTaggart

              Membership/subscriber (/customer) only content and SEO best practice

              Hello Mozzers, I was wondering whether there's any best practice guidance out there re: how to deal with membership/subscriber (existing customer) only content on a website, from an SEO perspective - what is best practice? A few SEOs have told me to make some of the content visible to Google, for SEO purposes, yet I'm really not sure whether this is acceptable / manipulative, and I don't want to upset Google (or users for that matter!) Thanks in advance, Luke

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
              0
            • djlittman

              If I own a .com url and also have the same url with .net, .info, .org, will I want to point them to the .com IP address?

              I have a domain, for example, mydomain.com and I purchased mydomain.net, mydomain.info, and mydomain.org.  Should I point the host @ to the IP where the .com is hosted in wpengine? I am not doing anything with the .org, .info, .net domains.  I simply purchased them to prevent competitors from buying the domains.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlittman
              0
            • Mark_Ch

              Best Practice For Company/Client Logo Endorsement

              Article: http://searchengineland.com/homepage-sliders-are-bad-for-seo-usability-163496 I came across the following article and somewhat agree with the authors summary.
              I find sliders a distraction to B2B users and overall offers no SEO benefits. Scenario
              As a service provider, over time I have worked with many high profile blue chip comnpanies. As part of my site redesign, I'm looking to show users my client achievements. My initial thoughts are to carry out the following: On the home page I'm looking to incorporate some high profile company logos (similar to http://www.semrush.com) with a hyperlink "more customers" to the right of logo caption. The link will take the user to a dedicated page (www.mydomain.co.uk/customer) showing a comprehensive list of company logos. Questions
              #1 Is the above practice good or bad.
              #2 Is there a better way to achieve the above Any other practical advise on user experience, social engagement, website speed, etc would be much appreciated. Thanks Mark

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
              0
            • JohnW-UK

              Best way to block a sub-domain from being indexed

              Hello, The search engines have indexed a sub-domain I did not want indexed its on old.domain.com and dev.domain.com - I was going to password them but is there a best practice way to block them. My main domain default robots.txt says :- Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml global User-agent: *
              Disallow: /cgi-bin/
              Disallow: /wp-admin/
              Disallow: /wp-includes/
              Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/
              Disallow: /wp-content/cache/
              Disallow: /wp-content/themes/
              Disallow: /trackback/
              Disallow: /feed/
              Disallow: /comments/
              Disallow: /category//
              Disallow: */trackback/
              Disallow: */feed/
              Disallow: /comments/
              Disallow: /?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK
              0
            • AndreVanKets

              Is it safe to redirect multiple URLs to a single URL?

              Hi, I have an old Wordress website with about 300-400 original pages of content on it. All relating to my company's industry: travel in Africa. It's a legitimate site with travel stories, photos, advice etc. Nothing spammy about. No adverts on it. No affiliates. The site hasn't been updated for a couple of years and we no longer have a need for it. Many of the stories on it are quite out of date. The site has built up a modest Mozrank value over the last 5 years, and has a few hundreds organically achieved inbound links. Recently I set up a swanky new branded website on ExpressionEngine on a new domain. My intention is to: Shut down the old site Focus all attention on building up content on the new website Ask the people linking to the old site to my new site instead (I wonder how many will actually do so...) Where possible, setup a 301 redirect from pages on the old site to their closest match on the new site Setup a 301 redirect from the old site's home page to new site's homepage Sounds good, right? But there is one issue I need some advice on... The old site has about 100 pages that do not have a good match on the new site. These pages are outdated or inferior quality, so it doesn't really make sense to rewrite them and put them on the new site. I call these my "black sheep pages". So... for these "black sheep pages" should I (A) redirect the urls to the new site's homepage (B) redirect the urls the old site's home page (which in turn, redirects to the new site's homepage, or (C) not redirect the urls, and let them die a lonely 404 death? OPTION A: oldsite.com/page1.php -> newsite.com
              oldsite.com/page2.php -> newsite.com
              oldsite.com/page3.php -> newsite.com
              oldsite.com/page4.php -> newsite.com
              oldsite.com/page5.php -> newsite.com
              oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION B: oldsite.com/page1.php -> oldsite.com
              oldsite.com/page2.php -> oldsite.com
              oldsite.com/page3.php -> oldsite.com
              oldsite.com/page4.php -> oldsite.com
              oldsite.com/page5.php -> oldsite.com
              oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION 😄 oldsite.com/page1.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
              oldsite.com/page2.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
              oldsite.com/page3.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
              oldsite.com/page4.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
              oldsite.com/page5.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
              oldsite.com -> newsite.com My intuition tells me that Option A would pass the most "link juice" to my new site, but I am concerned that it could also be seen by Google as a spammy redirect technique. What would you do? Help 😐

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndreVanKets
              1
            • Damiano

              Best practice to redirects based on visitors' detected language

              One of our websites has two languages, English and Italian. The English pages are available at the root level:
              www.site.com/   English homepage www.site.com/page1
              www.site.com/page2 The Italian pages are available under the /it/ level:
              www.site.com/it   Italian homepage www.site.com/it/pagina1
              www.site.com/it/pagina2 When an Italian visitor first visits www.mysit.com we'd like to redirect it to www.site.com/it but we don't know if that would impact search engine spiders (eg GoogleBot) in any way... It would be better to do a Javascript redirect? Or an http 3xx redirect? If so, which of the 3xx redirect should we use? Thank you

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Damiano
              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.