URL Structure for Product Pages
-
Hi Moz Community.
I'm in need of some URL structure advice for product pages. We currently have ~4,000+ products and I'm trying to determine whether I need a new URL structure from the previous site owners. There are two current product URL structures that exist in our website:
1.http://www.example.com/bracelets/gold-bracelets/1-1-10-ct-diamond-tw-slip-on-bangle-14k-pink-gold-gh-i1-i2/ (old URL structure)
2. http://www.example.com/gemstone-bracelet-prd-bcy-121189/ (new URL structure)The problem is that half of our products are still in the old structure (no one moved them forward), but at the same time I'm not sure if the new structure is optimized as much as possible. Every single gemstone bracelet, or whatever product will have the same url structure, only being unique with the product number at the end.
Would it be better to change everything over to more product specific URLS. I.e. example.com/topaz-gemstone-dangle-bracelet.
Thanks for your help!
-Reed -
Thanks for your help.
-
Hello again Reed,
Thats exactly how I would recommend doing it. I should have mentioned canonicalization in my first response because you will probably have each product in multiple categories.
-
Hi Barry,
Thanks for the response. That leads me to give you more examples...
Let's say we have a heart-shaped pendant/locket product. This product would now have three different URLs for each of the appropriate categories...
1. example.com/pendants/hearts/gold-heart-locket-12345
2. example.com/pendants/lockets/gold-heart-locket-12345
3. example.com/gold-heart-locket-12345 (our current platform always puts a rel="canonical" to the URL with no sub-directories, which tends to be the ranked URL every time)Would it be best to keep up with this practice of canonicalization for one preferred product pushed into multiple categories? Still using the above method of URL organization you just gave me of course.
-
Hello Reed,
I think the best thing to start with would be organizing your products into categories that both bots and humans can semantically understand that will eventually lead to the actual urls you will use. What I mean is it would be better to have some form of:
example.com/bracelets/dangle-topaz-gemstone
example.com/topaz-gemstone-dangle-bracelet
example.com/dangle-bracelets/topaz-gemstone
It would be best to not go past the 3rd level if you can help it but if you have over 4,000 products it might be hard. When I did this for a company I found that the more time I spent on the organizational structure of the products, the better and more organized the URLs ended up.
Good luck!
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
-
I'm struggling to understand (and fix) why I'm getting a 404 error. The URL includes this "%5Bnull%20id=43484%5D" but I cannot find that anywhere in the referring URL. Does anyone know why please? Thanks
Can you help with how to fix this 404 error please? It appears that I have a redirect from one page to the other, although the referring page URL works, but it appears to be linking to another URL with this code at the end of the the URL - %5Bnull%20id=43484%5D that I'm struggling to find and fix. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Nichole.wynter20200 -
SEO URLs: 1\. URLs in my language (Greek, Greeklish or English)? 2\. Αt the end it is good to put -> .html? What is the best way to get great ranking?
Hello all, I must put URLs in my language Greek, Greeklish or in English? And at the end of url it is good to put -> .html? For exampe www.test.com/test/test-test.html ? What is the best way to get great ranking? I am a new digital marketing manager and its my first time who works with a programmer who doesn't know. I need to know as soon as possible, because they want to be "on air" tomorrow! Thank you very much for your help! Regards, Marios
Technical SEO | | marioskal0 -
Google Displaying wrong URL but correct page title and description in SERPS
Hi. Our second highest performing page on Google is messed up in the SERPS. This is our login page. It always ranks high. It still does, but the URL is incorrect. Google is referencing an old redirect that was for a one off campaign from January 2014. This page has long been redirected. But now the vanity url for this page is what is displayed in Google. The link goes to our login page but once you log in it redirects you to a page saying the offer has expired instead of your account details. This is a huge issue for us. Can anyone shed some light? I'm having a rel canonical added since this page is used for a lot of vanity deeplinks.
Technical SEO | | PollyKane0 -
URL Structure
I'm going through the process of redesigning our website, and the URL structure was brought up. We currently have our URLs structured as domain.com/keyword. It seems that some people think setting your URLs up to look like: domain.com/directory/keyword makes more sense from a user's perspective, and from a search engine's perspective. With our directories labeled as services, solutions, clients - I see no value in adding directories as it dilutes the keyword and brings the keyword further away from the domain. Are there situations where adding a directory before the page in the URL makes sense? If anyone has data showing the difference between the two that'd be great! Thanks, Brian
Technical SEO | | PrasoonGoel0 -
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 -
My number of duplicate page title and temporary redirect warnings increased after I enabled Canonical urls. Why? Is this normal?
After receiving my first SEO moz report, I had some duplicate page titles and temporary redirects. I was told enabling Canonical urls would take of this. I enabled the Canonical URLs, but the next report showed that both of those problems had increased three fold after enabled the canonical urls! What happened?
Technical SEO | | btsseo780 -
Would having the same paragraph on every product page be bad?
I am trying to figure out if having the same paragraph on every product would be a bad thing. I know it would be bad to have the same description on every product, but this isn't a description it is a helpful paragraph stating this: Having trouble finding the wheelchair part you need? Please call us at 1-800-328-5343 or fill out the (Link)Wheelchair Parts Request Form(Link). One of our friendly customer service representatives will be happy to help you. Or would it be best to just have the "wheelchair parts request form" Link on every page Or would it be best to have neither and try putting that in a higher category making it on one page instead of every product page?
Technical SEO | | Mike.Bean0 -
Mobile Site Domain/URL Structure
We are currently building a mobile optimised version of our main website and I had some questions with regard to SEO. 1. Is it best to structure the domain as: m.yourdomain.com yourdomain/m 2. It is correct to place rel="cannonical" on the mobile pages and to have only the main site indexed? Thanks in advance and links or books on mobile seo you can direct me to that would be greatly appreciated. Phil
Technical SEO | | Phily0