URL structure
-
Hi,
I am in the process of having a site created which will focus on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and PS3 Vita.
I would appreciate some advice when it comes to the URL structure. Each category mentioned above will have the following subsections
News
Reviews
Screenshots
TrailersWould the best url structure be?
www.domain.com/xbox-360/news/news-story-headline
www.domain.com/ps3/reviews/ps3-game-nameThanks in advance for your help and suggestions.
-
The timestamp is totally up to you if you think your URL:s will look better without them.
However Google tends to give pages with clear indications of when the information was published a little boosts. And they do mention that freshness is key for content.
So the timestamp is important but I'm guessing that you'll have a timestamp in the article with the standard WP config anyhow so it's really not that essential in the URL. But If you have many articles it can be good to have a time indicator in them, if only for your own use.
To give yo a better example of how the permalink settings could look in WP:
/%category%/%postname%/
If you do it this way you won't have a timestamp in the URL.
* Remember that WP will use only one category in the permalinks so I reccomend you to only have one category for the URL.
Both way works, just choose one and remember that you need to stick to the one you choose so that the inbound links don't loose effect.
best, G
-
Thanks Gustav. Do I really need the timestamp? (However I am looking to get listed on Google News in the future)
I was thinking of the following structure:-
ps3/ps3-reviews/game-name-review
xbox-360/xbox-360-reviews/game-name-review -
That's correct
- otherwise it would be seen as duplicated content.
But that doesn't create any problems for you.
Just set the structure to:
Maincategory/subcategory/nichecategory/timestamp/article
EG:
For Xbox:
Reviews/xbox-360/timestamp/game-review-name
FOr PS3:
Reviews/Ps3/timestamp/game-review-name
This should work fine
Best, G
-
Thanks for the kind words, both.
It appears that with Wordpress each category (even sub categories) cannot have the same name so for example, "reviews" can only be used once and cannot be used within /xbox-360/reviews/game-review-name and ps3/reviews/game-review-name
Is that correct?
-
Great thoughts, but I would just like to add another: you may want to keep all subfolders in lowercase. This could prevent headaches later on if URL characters have a mixture of cases.
-
Nice thread!
As Marcus mentioned, it's good to have cross platform category, there is however another way
You could:
Instead of using cross platform as a category, simply use rel canonical.
In WP this is simple you just choose the categories eg: Xbox360, PS3 and Wii and then choose which one that you want as a main indexed article with a rel canonical tag.
Best
Nice work on the site!
-
Yep, I guess, but to play devils advocate here, what if it is a cross platform review?
You could review on one platform, make that the main one and then have the same content on other URLS that have a canonical pointing to the main review.
Alternatively, you could have another category
/cp/ - cross platform
Then you could have:
www.totallygn.com/cp/reviews/fifa12-review
And the review could be listed under all categories from a browsing perspective and just have a caveat that the version reviewed was for PS3.
Either way, this is not going to skyrocket your SEO, but your current URLs are a bit on the long side (standard wordpress set up?).
Just try to choose something that makes for a good, readable, descriptive URL that is not too long and you will be okay.
Oh, and make sure you 301 all the old page addresses else you will run into bigger problems. In fact, take a look at this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
It gives you loads of 301 options from within wordpress but more importantly, it creates automatic 301 redirects when a posts address changes so it will do most of the heavy lifting for you. It also logs all 404's so you can see any changes you didnt make and add the relevant rules.
You are doing a lot right though: Wordpress is a great base and your site has tons of great content so so keep at it!
Marcus
-
Thanks Marcus. The site currently exists at www.totallygn.com but is not very SEO friendly as you can see.
With regards to what you said above. If we were to review FIFA 12 for the PS3 would your url be
www.totallygn.com/ps3/reviews/fifa12-review ?
Thanks again,
Neil
-
Hey, sounds interesting, I am a UK gamer so you will have to let me have a link!
Really, this should be a common sense, usability driven decision so the way you have listed it above seems to work for me.
The main categories are the consoles themselves so
/xbox/
/ps3/
/wii/
/vita/These then all break down into your four categories so
/xbox/News
/xbox/Reviews
/xbox/Screenshots
/xbox/Trailers/ps3/News
/ps3/Reviews
/ps3/Screenshots
/ps3/TrailersThis gives you plenty of flexibility to add new root categories, children categories etc and it gets your keywords in your URL if that is your SEO goal here. Ultimately, it makes for a nice, descriptive URL as well.
Good luck with the site!
Marcus
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
-
URL ASCII Characters Issue
Hi guys; Is there any different between URL whit capital ASCII code and URL with small ASCII Code? For example I have 2 URLS for one page like this: 1- 332-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B5%DB%8C%D9%84-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A7.html 2- 332-%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b5%db%8c%d9%84-%d8%af%d8%b1-%da%a9%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7.html both of them point to same page but no 1 is non SSL and no 2 is ssl version! and whole pges of site forces to https
Technical SEO | | seoiransite0 -
Received A Notice Regarding Spammy Structured Data. But we don't have any structured data or do we?
Got a message that we have spammy structured data on our site via webmaster tools and have no idea what they are referring to. We do not use any structured data using schema.org mark up. Could they be referring to something else? The message was: To: Webmaster of <a>http://www.lulus.com/</a>, Google has detected structured markup on some of your pages that violates our structured data quality guidelines. In order to ensure quality search results for users, we display rich search results only for content that uses markup that conforms to our quality guidelines. This manual action has been applied to lulus.com/ . We suggest that you fix your markup and file a reconsideration request. Once we determine that the markup on the pages is compliant with our guidelines, we will remove this manual action. What could we be showing them that would be interpreted as structured data, and or spammy structured data?
Technical SEO | | KentH0 -
Should I change or redirect this URL?
Happy Friday everyone! I just noticed that one of our Attorney Profile's url's is wrong. We used to have someone named "Dana Fortugno" as our Family Law attorney, but when he left, (over two years ago) we hired "Scott Finelli." The person who setup the site, just changed the information on the page not url. So instead of it saying "http://www.kempruge.com/scott-finelli-jd-llm/;" it says "http://www.kempruge.com/dana-fortugno-jd-llm/." I'm considering taking all the content on the page with the wrong url, copying it to a new page with the correct URL and 301 redirecting (what would now be a blank page) to the new page with the correct URL. Is this the best way to handle this? Also, I don't believe there are many SEO concerns regarding the pages specifically. The profile pages aren't what we rank for in any of our Family Law related keywords. I am worried about having a completely blank page that just 301 redirects as looking bad to google, but not sure if it would? As always, thank you for your time and any assistance you can provide. Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
URL Structure Question
We are building a job board website that will have a decent amount of "career resources" type content and want to make sure we set up our url structure correctly. After researching on Google and here I have an idea how to structure it but would like some insight if we are on the right track. We are using Wordpress for the content part of our website. We will have about 5 content categories (like resume-tips, job-interviews, job-search etc.) The two options we are considering; www.domain.com/career-resources/index.html As content start page www.domain.com/career-resources/resume-tips/index.html category start page www.domain.com/career-resources/resume-tips/top-5-resume-mistakes.html article name is the /career-resources/ folder really needed or can we go something like; www.domain.com/career-resources/index.html As content start page www.domain.com/resume-tips/index.html category start page www.domain.com/resume-tips/top-5-resume-mistakes.html article name Are we on the right track... and is one way better for SEO that the other? Thanks! Shaun
Technical SEO | | aactive0 -
Should I change by URL's
I started with a static website and then moved to Wordpress. At the time I had a few hundred pages and wanted to keep the same URL structure so I use a plugin that adds .html to every page. Should I change the structure to a more common URL structure and do 301 directs from the .html page to the regular page?
Technical SEO | | JillB20130 -
SEO friendly url strategy...
Hi guys i just wanted your expert opinion on keywords in urls. The example i'm giving you is in regards to a ecommerce website: Option 1: www.example.com/shop/coffee/coffee-beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr Option 2: www.example.com/shop/coffee/beans/brand-coffee-beans-500gr We sell coffee so i'll keep the example relevant 🙂 Does it make a difference on how the keywords are stacked throughout? Would the search engine combine the two keywords eg. .../coffee/beans/... or would i be better of having .../coffee/coffee-beans/... and is there a penalty for having the same phrase more than once in the url? I hope my question makes sense... 😉 Looking forward to your opinions and ideas!
Technical SEO | | Immanuel0 -
/out/ URLs in GWMTs
I am recently seeing some URLs come up as 404s in GWMTs for a client. They look like this: http://client-url/out/www.linkedin.com/company/client-linkedin-name /out/client-url/sub-directory/postname/ We thought they might have something to do with the social plugins but they are all over the place and they are sometime for internal pages on the site. Anyone run into these and know why they are happening?
Technical SEO | | DragonSearch0 -
Site Structure Still Old
Ok after my first SEO report from seomoz I re-structured one of my sites. I basically split it into two different sites. I did this way before it was re-crawled on 5/1 and the results still show pages that no longer exist on that domain. What is causing this (user error I am sure but I just need to know what I can do to fix it).
Technical SEO | | bobbabuoy0