Designing path structure - readability or keyword density
-
We are looking at redesigning our URL structure to accommodate our expansion. This gives us a chance to change the path, but we have found conflicting advice on readability vs. keyword density.
These are our three options.
mywebsite.com/s/birmingham/restaurants (Keep it short so that the keywords dominate the path)
or
mywebsite.com/search/birmingham/restaurants (Accurately describe the content on the page)
or
mywebsite.com/top/birmingham/restaurants (Be a bit spammy and include a word often associated with our inbound searches)
Does anyone have any experience on what works best?
-
Thanks for all responses, extremely useful.
-
Hi -
Here in this case, it comes to readability.
All have, Birmingham and restaurants are the 2nd and 3rd level subfolder, so they have the same impact.
In my view, it should be as simple as site.com/restaurants/birmingham, where the restaurants your main identifier of the keyword is closer to TLD.
Zomato.com does it very good, you can checkout that as well to inspire yourself.
Also booking.com is to some extent good.
If have to choose between the 3, i'd go with the first one
K
-
Hi,
I think your first option is the best. This is why I think so:
- I like short URLs - they look nicer and are less likely to be miss-typed
- The word 'search' is not one of your keywords, so unnescessary in the url
- You're right that using 'top' could be a 'bit spammy' - Also, if people's search behaviour changes and they stop searching for 'Top ...' then you may come to regret putting all your eggs in that basket (as it were). I personally wouldn't take the risk.
If you do change the URLs, make sure you do proper 301 redirects from page to page (e.g. old Brirmingham Restaurant page should forward to the new version of it, NOT just the homepage). Also, submit your xml via WMT, and with any super-important pages you can use the Fetch as Google tool which allows you to submit the page to Google's index.
Good luck with your site overhaul!
Amelia
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
-
Ranking keywords
Is there a way to utilize our currently ranking keywords. I don't think editing the url would be a good idea. What areas of these pages should we improve? Or is it better not to do anything.
On-Page Optimization | | Timberwink0 -
Keywords used to land on specific page?
Hi all, Does anyone know if there's anywhere where I can see what keywords are used in search engines to land on a specific page? I have access to the Google Analytics account and linked it to Moz as a campaign, but I can't find this data. I'm curious about this because a very uncommon word is used in a page title for a page I try to optimize. It's the Dutch translation of 'malicious'. And now I wonder if it's better to switch to a word that's used more often. Or if it's better to 'win the battle' on this (probably) rarely used word. I've used Google trends to see how many people use it, but it says there's not enough data to show the interest over time.
On-Page Optimization | | RaoulWB0 -
Url permalink structure question!
Hello! I just read the "15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs" but I have still a question: My A version bellow "20 accessoires" has no meaning in french. If I add "voyage" (version B), then is it considered as spammy? I mean the "voyage" keyword repetition? A) http://www.lytchee.com/preparer-son-voyage/20-accessoires/ B) http://www.lytchee.com/preparer-son-voyage/20-accessoires-voyage Thanks for advices! Sylvain
On-Page Optimization | | lytcheetv0 -
Ideal number of keywords for a text
Hi there! I am trying to figure out what the ideal number of my queries per copy (400 words) would be. My queries are: lg dryer repair (volume search: 851-1k)
On-Page Optimization | | kirupa
lg washer repair (volume search: 851-1k)
lg appliance repair (volume search: 851-1k)
lg repair service (volume search: 501-850)
lg washing machine repair (volume search: 501-850)
lg dishwasher repair (volume search: 201-500)
lg appliance repair (volume search: 851-1k) How many times do you think I might use each of those quires? Is there any algorithm to figure that out? I would appreciate very much any thought you could share with me.0 -
The seomoz on page keyword analysis tool is not showing title or keyword in document
the SEOMOZ onpage analysis tool is not not showing title or keyword for any page in one of my sites. It says there are no title elements on my page and there are, i checked the source code myself and they are there and correct. my title and keywords are in there and show up fine in firefox and internet explorer even after i refresh them. why would this tool show them as missing in one of my sites but not others? I'm worried that google's spider might not see them if the on page analyzer doesn't see them and my rankings might drop. they showed up the other day in the seomoz on page analyzer just fine and i haven't changed anything. Thanks mozzers!
On-Page Optimization | | Ron100 -
Keyword in URL: Ranking Factor?
I've got a site about a specific topic, which we'll call "themes" for the sake of this discussion. I personally like to keep the url structure short and clean (for usability purposes, but mainly because I'm a perfectionist and a minimalist). I feel that adding "themes" to the url structure is a bit redundant. However, nearly every keyword phrase that my site should rank for includes the word "themes." So I'm wondering how much I'm handicapping myself by not including the keyword "themes" in the url? The domain name itself sort of includes the keyword . . . although it's in Italian (I chose the domain for it's brand-ability, not for the keyword). A quick example: My Url Structure: www.themo.com/topic/abc My Competitor's Url Structure: www.sitesample.com/themes/topic/abc For many of the keywords, the competitors with the keyword in the url rank highest. But, I'm not sure how much emphasis to place on this, because from my understanding Google doesn't pay as much attention to url keywords anymore . . . and those sites might just be ranking high because they've been around for so long (which also happens to be the reason why they coincidentally also include the keyword in the url, because they started the site when that was a high ranking factor). Thoughts? Should I just trash my perfectionism and add the keyword to the url structure? (By the way, the site is only a couple months old and doesn't have any significant backlinks to inner pages yet, so changing the url structure wouldn't be a big deal if I decided to do that).
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Keyword stuffing - is it true?
Hi, I use On-Page Report Card for this url (the web is in Bulgarian) : http://cholakovit.com My keyword is in Bulgarian - "уеб дизайн" (which means "web design". It shows me that my keywords is: " Total Keyword Usage for this Page = 5875 "I cannot find so many instances of this keyword. Only 13 uses for "уеб" and 10 for "дизайн" in the whole page code. Is there an error in the report?When I search the English version -http://cholakovit.com/enwhich is almost the same but translated in English of the page for the key phrase "web design" it shows only "Total Keyword Usage for this Page = 8"
On-Page Optimization | | vladokan0 -
Keyword in url, which way better?
Hello, is there a difference between urls for targeting keyword "brazil tourist visa" fastbrazilvisas.com/tourist or fastbrazilvisas.com/brazil-tourist-visa ? ran the report In-Page Optimization it tells "no keyword usage in url". is there an idea behind that? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Kotkov0