Site structure question
-
I'm doing a site that will have many many pages.
Now I have heard that you get more seo value if its a lower tear so for example:rather than
site.com/brand/subbrand/product
Is this correct?
Should I structure my site like this?
site.com/product
site.com/brand points to site.com/product(so all products are on the sub root.)
Does that make sense?
-
One thing to consider with site structure is your analytics. Using a directory structure can give you some valuable information in your analytics -- you can look at a particular category of product in aggregate and see how it is doing, if it is set up properly.
This post from LunaMetrics has some more ideas for setting up a GA-friendly site at http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/09/22/designing-google-analytics-friendly-site/.
-
Thanks for the responses!
based on some research I think first level is best.
Yahoo stores sets it up this way.
Example: site.com/brands (then the actual product is in the root)
Yahoo store structures there sites like this.
-
You could use no-follow, but for this purpose, it seemed best to just not hyper the text. I would have a product page of perhaps 30+ products PLUS links on each of those to the products full description page PLUS links to the brand page PLUS my normal page links. This starts to add up quickly and Roger yelled at me
-
Can you go into more detail about this problem with your brand links on your product pages? How did you determine the right number of links that should be on a page? Couldn't you use "no-follow" tags in the URLs and solve the same issue?
-
No more than 3 levels deep.
Yes, as you have written.
site.com/products-category/product-001.html The brand name could be a hyper to the brand page
site.com/brand/ where this list all the brands. Click on a brand, pulls the product page with a filter.
Then I have some high level brands that list their products on the brand page as an all inclusive.
Now I did have to remove my 'brand' links from my product pages as I was getting too many links on the page, so look out for that.
You are on the correct path.
-
The actual physical directories you use are really not a factor. You can have a webserver path that looks like site.com/brand/subbrand/productid/product but reach it from a URL of site.com/product if you use routes or other means of creating a virtual path.
That aside, what's important is not how deep a page is in your directory structure, but how many clicks would it take a user or crawler to get to the page. If a user has to click from Nike.com to "Nike shoes" then "Nike running shoes" then "Nike 3000x running shoe", that would be a concern, especially if there are more levels to your structure.
On the other hand, if you have a link on your home page that says "Nike Running Shoes", or a link from your home page directly to your latest products, that would get those pages more value from a SEO perspective.
-
I would focus more on your Site Architecture. Focus on clicks from the home page.
There is a great article about it here (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo), along with a link to Rand's video on Site Architecture.
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
-
Help getting a Wordpress.com site to rank
Hi all, I have a blog for my site, but it hasn't been integrated into our site yet (that will happen in the next few months when we do some site changes). For now, it sits on a Wordpress.com site, and links from my website. I post a couple times a week, have social media linked to it, and feed posts to aggregators regularly. I also comment and like other Wordpress.com sites, but it just isn't ranking. Do I just need to stay persistent? It's been up for a month now, but still only getting a few hits a day. Any advice?
Content Development | | b4cab0 -
Guest blog on my web site.
**I received this email from a lady who wishes to write articles and post them on my site under my news section . Ok, if its quality I dont mind hiring somebody to create a post. Her proposal is as follows and this is her email :-**Basically what I can offer is to write a couple of articles for your News section, something fun and interesting for your visitors which will hopefully drag some traffic your way. I could make them well suited to your site and I could include in each a link to a client of mine - one who wants to be exposed on a good site like yours - and for doing that I can offer you compensation of £33 for each client link - 1 per article. For example, one client is Watches of Switzerland, so I could write an article about ideal wedding gifts for a groom maybe, or something about a perfect Honeymoon destination like Switzerland, and slip a link in there. Other clients include Weddingsite and Lampcommerce - which could be included in something about making a matrimonial home. There are a few stipulations I would need to abide by, like - the article would need to be 500 words, it would need the link to be a 'do follow' link, it would need a picture or two, and it would need a couple of 'sacrifice links' (just links to Wikipedia or something to make it more Google friendly). Question. Is this what a guest article is ? and also is the format ok ? Sorry if this seems a dumb question but still learning guys . King regards to everyone Peter
Content Development | | weddingshoesandaccessories1 -
How do I properly sitemap a site with static pages + Wordpress in it's own directory?
I apologize for the awkward wording in the headline. No to the issue, I have a site with static pages that are created as follows: url.com, url.com/page1, url.com/page2, etc. I then have WordPress install at url.com/blog. What is the proper method for creating a comprehensive sitemap for my entire domain. I like the sitemap feature provided by Yoast SEO plugin but I assume it will only index the wordpress directory (url.com/blog). Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Content Development | | Qcmny0 -
Would adding a news page hurt my site ranking ?
Hi Mozers I was thinking about adding an industry news page where we would post articles written by others but give proper citation and linking. Would a page like this hurt my SEO ? Thank You
Content Development | | Pzabarko1 -
I allow authority sites to republish my blog articles, which then outrank me
Hey everyone. This is my first question here, I apologize if it has been covered before. I have a health and nutrition blog [authority nutrition] that has been up since December 1st, 2012. I've managed to write quite a few viral articles which have given me a bunch of natural links and a domain authority of 49, which I think is pretty great for such a new site. Haven't done any link building and everything is 100% white hat. Getting good rankings and good traffic already, so I can't complain. My only (1st world) problem is that sometimes major authority sites (DA of 70-95) republish my content. I always say yes if they ask me first, but some of them just republish without even asking. My articles are always indexed on my blog before they get republished, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. These sites always clearly link to the original URL, but they often tend to outrank me for the keywords I was targeting in the articles. They tend to rank in the top 5, but my original article is nowhere to be found. I plan on continuing to allow these sites to republish as I get powerful links and good traffic from them, but it's a bit frustrating that I don't seem to get the credit as the original source. I've already set up Google Authorship, but it doesn't seem to help. Is there anything I can do to make sure Google recognizes my article as the original and chooses to rank my site instead of the authority site that simply republished my article?
Content Development | | kriistjanm1 -
Ecommerce site content upgrade timescale.
I have been upgrading my sites content and structure and I have been wondering how long I should wait for a traffic increase before I should think it has been a failure and try a new plan of attack?
Content Development | | mark_baird0 -
Can having similar content on my company's two sites hurt our rankings?
We have a very successful website that has been up for a number of years (www.comellaortho.com). We rank high in the natural rankings for that site. A few months ago, we started seeing patients in another nearby city. I purchased a new domain name, www.dansvilleortho.com, and had our web company duplicate the website under the new domain name. The reality is that the content on these two sites are nearly identical. Some of the pages are different; for example, there are fewer pages on the new site. But the pages that do exist are nearly identical. My question is: Can having similar content on my company's two sites hurt our rankings? Based on what I've read thus far, I believe the answer is "Yes". However, I'm curious how bad this may hurt us. I'm not as worried about the new site (dansvilleortho.com) because our competition in that city is slim to none. But I AM worried about harming the original site/business (comellaortho.com). Which site(s) rankings may be affected by this, and if so, how bad? Thank you.
Content Development | | comellortho0 -
Press Releases and Duplicate Content on Event Related Site
I have a site that lists events. I ask those submitting events to submit original content if possible, but frequently they submit press releases which are already published elsewhere. I rewrite some of the press releases, but do not have time to rewrite every press release that comes my way. I want my users to get a comprehensive list of events, but I don't want get a penalty for duplicate content. What is the best solution?
Content Development | | andywozhere0