URL Length
-
What is the ideal length for an item's URL. Theirs a few different options.
B) www.mydomain.com/category-name/product-name
C) www.mydomain.com/category-name/sub-category-name/product-name
Please choose A, B, or C and explain why you made that decision.
Looking forward to the responses.
-
The minimize url length is always better. Keep it minimized, IE allowed maximum of 2000 characters which is too long. Less then 100 is good and less is even better.
B option is good, going into sub-categories make it lengthy.
-
folder structure is hidden to users and search engines. so i guess link structure is informative on how a website is organized into folders. your suggestion on different options makes sense. Large websites towards option C and smaller ones towards option A
-
glad to share what I've found. I'm blessed in that I get to experiment with methods on several sites that get millions or tens of millions of visits each month
-
Thank you, Alan. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on that.
-
Yes from that perspective, you're correct. Links outweigh folder relationships as signals because links are the "almighty final say".
Of course, if you've got them all in the same folder, then you should also have a sub-nav unique to that folder where each of those pages has the links to each of the other pages.
Then throw in microformat encoded breadcrumbs and that combination is the most potent.
-
If I have separate pages on my site for red widgets, blue widgets and green widgets..... they might not be in the same folder but they might link to one another because I have all widgets pages linking to all other widgets pages.
Would that topical association through links be more powerful than if they were in the same folder but not necessarily linking to one another.
I have always held the belief that link structure is more important than folder structure.
-
Link structure vs. folder structure? Not sure I understand - links point to content. Content is located in folders (or just the root folder). can you clarify?
-
Alan, do you think link structure is more important than folder structure in communicating topical relationships?
-
Let me add the reason for the answers you got.
A) Distinct organization of content is critical to communicating topical relationships and topical separation to search engines
B) URLs of this type provide 1 of the many ways Users can understand clear relationships of content
C) if you go too far down the rabbit hole, it becomes too diluted for search engine value
D) if you go too far down, it crosses the line into confusion for users
-
C. If you have categories and sub-categories, than there is value to organizing your site to reflect that. If you are creating sub-categories for the sake of sub-categories, then I would go with B.
It really depends on the nature of what your site is about. For example, /shoes/running-shoes/specific-shoe-type/ makes sense. However, /shoes/running-shoes/red-running-shoes/red-running-shoes-velcro/red-running-shoes-velcro-hi-top/specific-shoe/ is probably too long.
-
**A) www.mydomain.com/item-name **
If you have a very small website then by all means use this method.
**B) www.mydomain.com/category-name/product-name **
... but once your website grows you will wish that you had done this.
C) www.mydomain.com/category-name/sub-category-name/product-name
... and if you have a reeeeeeally big site then you might need this - but only if your categories run wildly big (ever try to open a DreamWeaver folder with 15,000 items?
I think that where people run into problems is when they try to do this....
www.mydomain/big-green-widgets-with-bells/green-brass-widgets-size-seven/the-ones-with-waffle-treads-and-extra-long-laces-in-yellow
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Technical URL SEO question
Hi All, We sell a product on our site which is displayed in cubic metres, from an SEO perspective is it ok to have /3m³ in the URL or should I use 3m3. Thanks All
Technical SEO | | Redooo0 -
Want to change URL for a page
Hey there Mozzers. I want to change the url of a certain page on my website. Example: www.example.com/poker-face I want to change this www.example.com/poker-faces Should I create a new page and make the old one 301? Does 301 pass all the link juice in the new page or do i have to make a rel=canonical also ?
Technical SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
# in url affecting rank
Hi I am building links to a page www.companyname.com/category.index.php There is also another similar url www.companyname.com/category.index.php#. This page is linked to from the non # page. This is a new client and I'm not entirely sure why that link is there. Am I correct in thinking that these two urls are different in the eyes of the search engines? If so, would some of the link juice to www.companyname.com/category.index.php be transferred to www.companyname.com/category.index.php# and affect the ranking of the non # page? I hope this makes sense! Thanks
Technical SEO | | sicseo0 -
Updating content on URL or new URL
High Mozzers, We are an event organisation. Every year we produce like 350 events. All the events are on our website. A lot of these events are held every year. So i have an URL like www.domainname.nl/eventname So what would you do. This URL has some inbound links, some social mentions and so on. SO if the event will be held again in 2013. Would it be better to update the content on this URL or create a new one. I would keep this URL and update it because of the linkvalue and it is allready indexed and ranking for the desired keyword for that event. Cheers, Ruud
Technical SEO | | RuudHeijnen0 -
How to handle temporary campaign URLs
Hi, We have just run a yearly returning commercial campaign for which we have created optimized URL's. (e.g. www.domain.tld/campaign including the category and brand names after the campaign www.domain.tld./campaign/womens This has resulted in 4500+ URL's being indexed in Google including the campaign name, now the campaign is over and these URL's do not exist anymore. How should we handle those URL's? 1.) 301 them to the correct category without the campaign name 2.) Create a static page www.domain.tld/campaign to which we 301 all URL's that have the campaign name in them Do you have any other suggestions on what the best approach would be? This is a yearly commercial campaign so in a year time we will have the same URL's again. Thanks, Chris
Technical SEO | | eCommerceSEO0 -
Best URL Structure for Product Pages?
I am happy with my URLs and my ecommerce site ranks well over all, but I have a question about product URL's. Specifically when the products have multiple attributes such as "color". I use a header URL in order to present the 'style' of products, www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-GIB-LPCCT-LIST and I allow each 'color' to have it's own URL so people can send or bookmark a specific item. www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-GIB-LPCCT-ANCH1 www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-GIB-LPCCT-WRCH1 I use a rel canonical to show that the header URL is the URL search engines should be indexing and to avoid duplicate content issues from having the exact same info, MP3's, PDF's, Video's accessories, etc on each specific item URL. I also have a 'noindex no follow' on the specific item URL. These header URLs rank well, but when using tools like SEOMoz, which I love, my header pages fail for using rel canonical and 'noindex no follow' I've considered only having the header URL, but I like the idea of shoppers being able to get to the specific product URL. Do I need the no index no follow? Do I even need the rel canonical? Any suggestions?
Technical SEO | | dianeb1520 -
Slashes In Url's
If your cms has created two urls for the same piece of content that look like the following, www.domianname.com/stores and www.domianname.com/stores/, will this be seen as duplicate content by google? Your tools seem to pick it up as errors. Does one of the urls need 301 to the other to clear this up, or is it not a major problem? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | gregster10000 -
Directory URL structure last / in the url
Ok, So my site's urls works like this www.site.com/widgets/ If you go to www.site.com/widgets (without the last / ) you get a 404. My site did no used to require the last / to load the page but it has over the last year and my rankings have dropped on those pages... But Yahoo and BING still indexes all my pages without the last / and it some how still loads the page if you go to it from yahoo or bing, but it looks like this in the address bar once you arrive from bing or yahoo. http://www.site.com/404.asp?404;http://site.com:80/widgets/ How do I fix this? Should'nt all the engines see those pages the same way with the last / included? What is the best structure for SEO?
Technical SEO | | DavidS-2820610