URL Structure & SEO - Should we be using sub-folders?
-
Hi all,
As part of our content marketing efforts we have run a number of initiatives in the past and created pages on the website to go along with them (also where the links for these particular projects point to).
However, the URL structure isn't actually a reflection of where the pages sit on the site. Unfortunately I'm unable to provide a URL for reasons I won't bore you with, but here's an example:
We recently ran a competition that was very successful in generating links. The URL for this is www.domain.co.uk/competition.
However, the page actually sits within the About Us section - which is where all of our news and content marketing pages go - and uses a URL override.
How much of an issue is this in regards to A) Our SEO in general?; and B) Ensuring we receive as much equity from the links we earn as possible? A brief explanation of what URL overrides actually are would also be useful! (We have a digital marketing agency who handle most of our SEO)
Thanks in advance guys!
John
-
Hi Jimmy,
Thanks very much for the reply!
John
-
Hi Tom,
Yes that's exactly right. The link from the About Us section goes directly to www.example.com/competition - it doesn't quickly redirect.
Thanks for putting my mind at ease!
John
-
Hi John
Just to make sure I'm reading this correctly.
You have your homepage. You can then click to the "about us" page. And from there, you can click to the "competition" page.
However, instead of it looking like: www.example.com/about-us/competition, it looks like: www.example.com/competition
Is that correct?
If it is, then I don't think there is anything to worry about. Here's why:
Think of your URL as merely a cosmetic thing. Your URL structure does not have to reflect how a search engine or a user reaches that page. The most important thing in terms of site structure and SEO is how a search engine crawler (and user) reaches that page - IE, how many clicks away from your root domain it is.
As a rule of thumb, you should try to keep all of your important pages no more than 3 clicks away from your homepage - and ideally as few as possible. How the URL is presented when the user/search engine reaches that point is not relevant**
**This isn't entirely the case - there is some correlation with including your keyword in the URL and higher rankings, albeit a very slight correlation. For example, some sites have links to their main pages from their homepage which then take you to a URL like: http://www.example.com/keyword/product-a - that doesn't mean that the search engine has to reach the page by going through that subfolder (which may not even exist), but the display URL contains the keyword and so it might be better for SEO (although I think if this does have an effect it is very, very slim). Conversely, if your main page URL was http://www.example.com/keyword, but it takes you four clicks to reach there, it would not be good for SEO as your page is so far away from the homepage.
The main guidelines here are to:
- Keep your main pages as close to the homepage as possible (via internal links)
- Try to include the keyword in your URL if possible (or at least use friendly, readable URLs)
Now, on the "about us" page, the link that goes to the "competition" page - does it go directly to www.example.com/competition, or is it linked to www.example.com/about-us/competition and then quickly redirects?
If it's the second scenario, that would be an unnecessary redirect and might involve some of the link equity being diluted. I'd get the agency to look at linking to the www.example.com/competition page directly if that is the case (although I doubt it will be).
I hope that helps to explain some things!
-
Hi John,
Your URL override sounds like a 301 redirect, you can test this by going to what the URL actually is in your system, e.g. www.domain.co.uk/about-us/pages/competition with a
'URL Redirect Checker'
If it reports as '301' then that is good (Moz has a section on redirects in their learn section).
If it reports as another type of redirect then that would not be as efficient as a 301.
Pages that come back as '200' are direct links (these are the best), 301 is 'Moved Permanently', they also prevent the page from being indexable via both URLs so as to remove any duplicate content possibilities.
301 redirects are 'meant' to carry all the equity across so nothing is being lost from an SEO perspectiveIn terms of SEO, having the easiest URLs possible is always a bonus, not only does Google prefer shorter URLs but is also encourages direct traffic and visitor referrals (you'd rather tell a friend to go to a particular if it easy enough to type).
Kind Regards
Jimmy
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
-
Can you help by advising how to stop a URL from referring to another URL on my website please?
Stopping a redirect from one URL to another due to a 404 error? Referred URL which is (https://webwritinglab.com/know-exactly-what-your-ideal-clients-want-in-8-easy-steps/%5Bnull%20id=43484%5D) Referring URL (https://webwritinglab.com/know-exactly-what-your-ideal-clients-want-in-8-easy-steps/)
Technical SEO | | Nichole.wynter20200 -
After you remove a 301 redirect that Google has processed, will the new URL retain any of the link equity from the old URL?
Lets say you 301 redirect URL A to URL B, and URL A has some backlinks from other sites. Say you left the 301 redirect in place for a year, and Google had already replaced the old URL with the new URL in the SERPs, would the new URL (B) retain some of the link equity from URL A after the 301 redirect was removed, or does the redirect have to remain in place forever?
Technical SEO | | johnwalkersmith0 -
Can you use a seperate url for a interior product page on a site?
I have a friend that has a health insurance agency site. He wants to add a new page, for child health care insurance to his existing site. But the issue is, he brought a new URL; insurancemykidnow.com and he want's to use it for the new page. Now, I'm not sure I'm right on this, but I don't think that can be done? I'm I wrong? = Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | Coppell0 -
URL Question: Is there any value for ecomm sites in having a reverse "breadcrumb" in the URL?
Wondering if there is any value for e-comm sites to feature a reverse breadcrumb like structure in the URL? For example: Example: https://www.grainger.com/category/anchor-bolts/anchors/fasteners/ecatalog/N-8j5?ssf=3&ssf=3 where we have a reverse categorization happening? with /level2-sub-cat/level1-sub-cat/category in the reverse order as to the actual location on the site. Category: Fasteners
Technical SEO | | ROI_DNA
Sub-Cat (level 1): Anchors
Sub-Cat (level 2): Anchor Bolts0 -
Changing all urls
A client of mine has a wordpress website that is installed in a directory, called "site". So when you go to www.domain.com you are redirected to www.domain.com/site. We all know how bad it is to have a redirect fron your subdomain to another page. In this case I measured a loss of 5 points of page authority. The question is: what is the best practice to remove the "site" from the address and changing all the urls? Should I use the webmaster tool to tell to Google that the site is moving? It's not 100% true, cause the site is just moving one level up. Should I install a copy of the website under www.domain.com and just redirect 301 every old page to its new url? This way I think the site would be deindexet for 2/3 months. Any suggestions or tips welcome! Thanks DoMiSol
Technical SEO | | DoMiSoL0 -
Any Insights On HTML5 Parallax Sites & SEO?
Looking for any insights regarding experience with optimization and HTML5 websites that use parallax scrolling making the website only one page (single unique URL). If done right, I've seen a number of these sites with great UX, clean design and nice layouts, but it comes down to only being able to optimize a single page. Does Google view single page sites as less authoritative? I'll open the floor to any comments at all about this. Thanks in advance Mozzers.
Technical SEO | | PHDL0 -
Help with steps to take when fixing cannonical url structure?
I would like to 301 redirect all the variations of my site to a single url but would like some clarification on some issues. I have always been confused about how to handle cannonicalization and hopefully this can clear it up for me and others. This particular site is about 1 year old and gets approximately 15k uniques a month in a great niche. I want to make sure I do this correctly as to not hurt my existing rankings which are quite good. Here is is what I am unsure about. Basically I should pick the best url structure to redirect all the others to correct? What determines what url is best to redirect all the rest to? is it www.domain.com, http://domain.com or http://www.domain.com? Is the best one to redirect to always standard and something I should set up at the beginning of my site? Or is picking the best url to redirect to based on what url starts to rank in google and you then use that one? Should I be going through each of my rankings and seeing what url is ranking in google for each page? On this particular site ALL of my urls in google have no www. or http but instead show up in the SE as domain.com or domain.com/inner-page/html. In that case what do I do? I know the slow way to do redirects. I use my hostgator account and do it in cpanel and do it one by one. Is there a faster way where I can go and make lots of changes at once? Maybe I can choose all the variations and put in the one I want them all to redirect to? After I figure the above out is fixing all of this as simple as redirecting ALL variations to the one I will use moving forward for each page on my site? Then I am done? Thanks again for the help! Jake
Technical SEO | | PEnterprises0