SEO Dilution: Key Words in Sub Directories v Using a Hyphen in a Single Directory
-
Hi Moz Community,
I'm trying to understand if there is really any material difference with going with one URL structure compared to the other.
I assume the hyphen example below is what most would argue is the best option, but due to certain circumstances (I wont go into) I'm most likely going to be forced to use the sub directories URL option.
I'm just concerned that going down this path will have a material SEO effect...looking for peoples thoughts?
Keep in mind for this example:
-
I'm using the Shopify eCommerce platform and am forced to use the word 'collection' in the url
-
I sell shoes so the word ' Birkenstock ' within the URL represents the brand & 'Sandals ' represents the style.
-
The key word search in this instance would be birkenstock sandals
Example 1
http://companyname/collection/birkenstock/sandals V http://companyname/collection/birkenstock-sandals
Example 2
http://companyname/collection/sandals/birkenstock V http://companyname/collection/sandals-birkenstock
Will be interesting to hear if people what difference if any each will bring.
Thanks in advance for any insight.....
-
-
Hi Rene,
Thanks for the input and insight - much appreciated.
So expanding on your example and my specific question what do you believe the difference would be (if any) on search results for someone looking for Birkenstock sandals when you had two URL's of the below (considering all other SEO aspects were equal)
http://companyname/collection//sandals/birkenstock V http://companyname/collection/sandals-birkenstock
The restriction I've got are kind of forcing me to go with the first URL but with a fair amount of work and possibly ongoing maintenance I could go with the 2nd URL. However if the SEO result between the two is minimal then my decision on how to structure is easy - I go with what's easier to set up and manage.
Does that make sense?
Thanks...
-
Hi @chewythedog,
I would look at this from 2 perspectives.
First, unless you only sell sandals, or only sell birkenstocks, it makes sense to have another category level (ie /collection/{category}/{sub-category}
Second, I think you should use the common categorization of {category}/{brand}. This isn't really a search issue, it is a usability issue. Most people don't go out shopping for a brand. They don't say "today I want to buy something made by nike". They say, today I want to buy tennis shoes. Maybe they say, I want to buy nike tennis shoes, but they almost never say, today I want to buy something made by nike. While brand is important, most brands represent a broad number of products and thus it doesn't make sense to make them the primary category.
However, while people shop for product types, they search for brand+product (ie: people search for birkenstock sandals far more than they search for sandals birkenstock or sandals by birkenstock). Subsequently, while your categorization should probably be /sandals/birkenstock, the title of that page should probably be Birkenstock Sandals.
Finally, in general, link architecture is far more important than information architecture. You could have all of your URLs sitting in one directory (like wikipedia) and do great as long as you have a strong internal linking strategy. I would focuse far more attention on that than anything else.
-
Thanks Rene...but I'm really keen to know if the SEO difference would be marginal or significant, that is a key part of the question.
Cheers...
-
Shopify is good in many ways, but is also somewhat restrictive, in terms of URL. I would go with the shortest URL possible, which in this case is also the most describing one.
Shopify URLs are not good in terms of having a descriptive URL structure, and from I can tell, the so called, Shopify Experts, are only concerned about a webshop making any money. Not that they are possibly losing SEO benefits.
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
-
Our new site will be using static site generator which is supposed to be better for SEO?
Hi folks, Our dev team is planning on building our new marketing webpages on SSG or Static Site Generator(we are stepping away from SSR). Based on my research this is something that can help our SEO in particular for site speed (our site has a poor score).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TyEl
Are there any challenges or concerns I should be aware regarding this direction? If so what are they and how can this be addressed? Thanks0 -
Competitor using shady SEO tactics but still ranks at the top in Organic listings
A competitor of my client has been ranking consistently in the top 2 spots in the organic listings on Google for years. They have the advantage of keywords in the URL but no matter what we do we just can't bump them out of the top position. Recently we discovered that they have 7 or so .org sites set up claiming to be run by volunteers and their opinions are un-biased that "highly recommend" products from the main site's company. Is this against Google's policies? I've submitted a spam report to Google but of course haven't heard anything back from them. Our AdWords rep told us that the policy team doesn't respond directly to claims because of privacy reasons? Anyone know any other way to report things like this to Google? We got dropped from the rankings for 3 months due to malicious code (spammy links) injected into all the pages on our site but these people sit steadily at the top. I don't get it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pidot0 -
Block all but one URL in a directory using robots.txt?
Is it possible to block all but one URL with robots.txt? for example domain.com/subfolder/example.html, if we block the /subfolder/ directory we want all URLs except for the exact match url domain.com/subfolder to be blocked.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Page Titles SEO Title
Hi, I run an e-commerce store and within the CMS I define the SEO title, SEO description and SEO keywords for each item. I spoke to a SEO firm who advised me to start every product title with the colour, as this will reduce the duplicate page titles and serve me well in the future. Whats everyones view on this? Does naming something Grey Armani Jeans | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique stand up better against Armani Jeans Grey | Armani Jeans from Designer Boutique? Any help or tips on how to format the page titles and descriptions would be great. Thanks Will
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WillBlackburn0 -
In order to improve SEO with silos'urls, should i move my posts from blog directory to pages'directories ?
Now, my website is like this: myurl.com/blog/category1/mypost.html myurl.com/category1/mypage.html So I use silos urls. I'd like to improve my ranking a little bit more. Is it better to change my urls like this: myurl.com/category1/blog/mypost.html or maybe myurl.com/category1/mypost.html myurl.com/category1/mypage.html Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Max840 -
Effects on SEO with CDN
Should we be concerned about any adverse consequences to our site's SEO value when moving the site's assets (javascript files and css files) to a CDN (Akamai)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Volusion.com0 -
Should I be using rel canonical here?
I am reorganizing the data on my informational site in a drilldown menu. So, here's an example. One the home page are several different items. Let's say you clicked on "Back Problems". Then, you would get a menu that says: Disc problems, Pain relief, paralysis issues, see all back articles. Each of those pages will have a list of articles that suit. Some articles will appear on more than one page. Should I be worried about these pages being partially duplicates of each other? Should I use rel-canonical to make the root page for each section the one that is indexed. I'm thinking no, because I think it would be good to have all of these pages indexed. But then, that's why I'm asking!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes0 -
Use of Apache mod_rewrite module for SEO?
I'm curious if anyone here running a large, complex, dynamic site has used the Apache server mod_rewrite module to simplify their site's URLs by rewriting them in a standard format. The chief use of this module for SEO purposes would be to aid in canonicalization and reduce duplicate content. For example, you could easily convert all of you ALL CAPS or MixedCase URLs to lower case, change all "/index.html" URLs to just point to "/", change all word seperators to hyphens, and so on. Any server-side ninjas out there with stories to tell? 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jcolman0