Single Folder vs Root
-
I'm working on a multi-state attorney website and I'm going back and forth on URL's. I thought I'd see what the community thinks.
lawsite.com/los-angeles/car-accident-lawyer vs. lawsite.com/los-angeles-car-accident-lawyer
I should note this site will have over a dozen city locations, with different practices.
-
My Friend,
I think that is fine. I would do that.
I wish you all the best in your project!
-
Dont overblow it really. I'm working on that too right now with positive effects, i.e /subject/another-subject/, it would be good if you link all the independent pages from /subject/ as well including a dropdown menu on /subject/ with all /another-subjects/.
-
Agreed, thanks!
-
Thanks for the great reply. Yes, quite a few practice areas. So it sounds like I should go the city folder route.
Follow up question; think I should do /westcehster-attorney/slip-and-fall-accident-lawyer, or am I getting a little spammy?
-
I recommend Joseph's approach. There are many benefits to this approach: manageability, scalability, and seo. You can address all the practice areas available in specific locations as well as rank the firm more strongly in each location by key of relevance.
-
Hello Friend,
Good question.
Are they only doing car accident cases? I assume that they are doing more.
Doing a folder for the city will allow you to create a hub city page that should link out to different practices for that city, and they should all link back to support the hub page. See how they did it.
https://mirmanlawyers.com/westchester/ (tier 2, pillar page, hub page)
https://mirmanlawyers.com/westchester/car-accident-lawyer/
https://mirmanlawyers.com/westchester/slip-and-fall-accident-lawyer/
If you only have one practice to focus one, I suggest you go for the. lawsite.com/los-angeles-car-accident-lawyer, but if you have many practices, I would go for lawsite.com/los-angeles/car-accident-lawyer and create a valuable sub-page for each practice and each location.
I wish you the best of luck with your project!
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
-
Syntax: 'canonical' vs "canonical" (Apostrophes or Quotes) does it matter?
I have been working on a site and through all the tools (Screaming Frog & Moz Bar) I've used it recognizes the canonical, but does Google? This is the only site I've worked on that has apostrophes. rel='canonical' href='https://www.example.com'/> It's apostrophes vs quotes. Could this error in syntax be causing the canonical not to be recognized? rel="canonical"href="https://www.example.com"/>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ccox10 -
Why do people put xml sitemaps in subfolders? Why not just the root? What's the best solution?
Just read this: "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location Yet surely it's better to put the sitemaps at the root so you have:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
(a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml
http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml
http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml
and so on... OR this kind of approach -
(b) http://example/com/sitemap.xml
http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml and
http://example.com/sitemap/spongecakes.xml I would tend towards (a) rather than (b) - which is the best option? Also, can I keep the structure the same for sitemaps that are subcategories of other sitemaps - for example - for a subcategory of http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml I might create http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml - or should I add a sub folder to turn it into http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes/cherryicing.xml Look forward to reading your comments - Luke0 -
I currently have a canonical tag pointing to a different url for single page categories on eCommerce site. Is this wrong ?
Hi Mozzers, I have a query regarding canonical tags on my eCommerce site.. Basically on my category pages whereby I have more than 1 page, I currently use next/prev rel and also have a canonical tag pointing to the View all version of that page. This is believe is correct.(see example - http://goo.gl/2gz6LV However, from looking at the view source on my other pages, I have noticed I have canonical tags on all my category pages which are only a single page and these canonicaltag are pointing to a different url. I enclose an example . Please advise Category page - http://goo.gl/Pk4zYl This is where the canonical tag points to - http://goo.gl/EwKv26 Another example Category Page - http://goo.gl/4gWTdD This is where the canonical tag for that page points to http://goo.gl/qm4HV7 Should I either make sure that categories that are only 1 page , don't have a canonical tag at all ? or do I have a canonical tag on say every page on my website for safety pointing to the main url for that page. The later, I imagine would be a belt and braces approach but I don't want to screw up anything if it's not advised? Please help/ Kind regards Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Ecommerce: A product in multiple categories with a canonical to create a ‘cluster’ in one primary category Vs. a single listing at root level with dynamic breadcrumb.
OK – bear with me on this… I am working on some pretty large ecommerce websites (50,000 + products) where it is appropriate for some individual products to be placed within multiple categories / sub-categories. For example, a Red Polo T-shirt could be placed within: Men’s > T-shirts >
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AbsoluteDesign
Men’s > T-shirts > Red T-shirts
Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts
Men’s > Sale > T-shirts
Etc. We’re getting great organic results for our general T-shirt page (for example) by clustering creative content within its structure – Top 10 tips on wearing a t-shirt (obviously not, but you get the idea). My instinct tells me to replicate this with products too. So, of all the location mentioned above, make sure all polo shirts (no matter what colour) have a canonical set within Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts. The presumption is that this will help build the authority of the Polo T-shirts page – this obviously presumes “Polo Shirts” get more search volume than “Red T-shirts”. My presumption why this is the best option is because it is very difficult to manage, particularly with a large inventory. And, from experience, taking the time and being meticulous when it comes to SEO is the only way to achieve success. From an administration point of view, it is a lot easier to have all product URLs at the root level and develop a dynamic breadcrumb trail – so all roads can lead to that one instance of the product. There's No need for canonicals; no need for ecommerce managers to remember which primary category to assign product types to; keeping everything at root level also means there no reason to worry about redirects if product move from sub-category to sub-category etc. What do you think is the best approach? Do 1000s of canonicals and redirect look ‘messy’ to a search engine overtime? Any thoughts and insights greatly received.0 -
Links to www vs non-www
I was having speed issues when I ran a test under Google Page Speed test and, as a result, switched to using Google Page Speed Service. This meant I had to switch my site from the non-www to the www. Since the switch my page is running faster but my ranking has dropped. What I'm trying to find out is the drop due to all of my previous links going to the non-www or is it because of the site being considered new and is more of a temporary issue. If it is a link issue I will contact everyone I can to see who will update the site address. Thanks everyone!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | toddmatthewca0 -
Can you Canonical to a URL in a different folder under the same domain?
I want to know if it's possible to add a canonical tag to a URL that points to a URL under a different folder. Content is just about the same. Here's an example (fake urls and product, but structure and parameters are similar to my client's website): domain.com/toy-ducks-results.aspx?color=Purple&model=Elvis domain.com/toy-ducks-details.aspx?color=Purple&model=Elvis&style=Sparkly Let's say that my purple Elvis ducks are really popular. Is there any harm in putting a rel=canonical on the Sparkly Elvis ducks page to the purple Elvis ducks page? Even though they are two different folders? /toy-ducks-results and /toy-ducks-details So, in effect, the preferred folder is /toy-ducks-results Thanks in advance for any help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EEE30 -
Create different pages with keyword variations VS. Add keyword variations in 1 page
For searches involving keywords like "lessons", "courses", "classes" I see frequently pages in the top rankings which do not contain the search term in the title tag, despite these terms being quite competitive. It seems that when searching for "classes", google detects that pages about "courses" may be just as relevant. What do you recommend? option 1: creating 10 pages optimized on 10 different keyword variations, each with a significant part of unique content or option 2: one page and dropping throughout the page 10 keyword variations in body and headlines Given that keywords are all synonyms and website has already high domain authority in the niche. thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
I run an (unusual) clothing company. And I'm about to set up a version of our existing site for kids. Should I use a different domain? Or keep the current root domain?
Hello. I have a burning question which I have been trying to answer for a while. I keep getting conflicting answers and I could really do with your help. I currently run an animal fancy dress (onesie) company in the UK called Kigu through the domain www.kigu.co.uk. We're the exclusive distributor for a supplier of Japanese animal costumes and we've been selling directly through this domain for about 3 years. We rank well across most of our key words and get about 2000 hits each day. We're about to start selling a Kids range - miniature versions of the same costumes. We're planning on doing this through a different domain which is currently live - www.kigu-kids.co.uk. It' been live for about 3-4 weeks. The idea behind keeping them on separate domains is that it is a different target market and we could promote the Kids site separately without having to bring people through the adult site. We want to keep the adult site (or at least the homepage) relatively free from anything kiddy as we promote fancy dress events in nightclubs and at festivals for over 18s (don't worry, nothing kinky) and we wouldn't want to confuse that message. I've since been advised by an expert in the field that that we should set up a redirect from www.kigu-kids.co.uk and house the kids website under www.kigu.co.uk/kids as this will be better from an SEO perspective and if we don't we'll only be competing with ourselves. Are we making a big mistake by not using the same root domain for both thus getting the most of the link juice for the kids site? And if we do decide to switch to have the domain as www.kigu.co.uk/kids, is it a mistake to still promote the www.kigu-kids.co.uk (redirecting) as our domain online? Would these be wasted links? Or would we still see the benefit? Is it better to combine or is two websites better than one? Any help and advice would be much appreciated. Tom.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KIGUCREW0