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Every SEO eventually gets fixated on a tactic. Maybe you read 100 blog posts about how to build the “perfectly” optimized URL, and you keep tweaking and tweaking until you get it just right. Fast-forward 2 months – you’re sitting on 17 layers of 301-redirects, you haven’t done any link-building, you haven’t written any content, you’re eating taco shells with mayonnaise for lunch, and your cat is dead.
Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme. I do see a lot of questions about the "ideal" URL structure in Q&A, though. Most of them boil down to going from pretty good URLs to slightly more pretty good URLs.
All Change Is Risky
I know it’s not what the motivational speakers want you to hear, but in the real world, change carries risk. Even a perfectly executed site-wide URL change – with pristine 301-redirects – is going to take time for Google to process. During that time, your rankings may bounce. You may get some errors. If your new URL scheme isn’t universally better than the old one, some pages may permanently lose ranking. There’s no good way to A/B test a site-wide SEO change.
More often, it’s just a case of diminishing returns. Going from pretty good to pretty gooder probably isn’t worth the time and effort, let alone the risk. So, when should you change your URLs? I’m going to dive into 5 specific scenarios to help you answer that question…
(1) Dynamic URLs
A dynamic URL creates content from code and data and carries parameters, like this:
It’s a common SEO misconception that Google can’t read these URLs or gets cut off after 2 or 3 parameters. In 2011, that’s just not true – although there are reasonable limits on URL length. The real problems with dynamic URLs are usually more complex:
- They don’t contain relevant keywords.
- They’re more prone to creating duplicate content.
- They tend to be less user-friendly (lower click-through).
- They tend to be longer.
So, when are your URLs too dynamic? The example above definitely needs help. It’s long, it has no relevant keywords, the color and size parameters are likely creating tons of near-duplicates, and the session ID is creating virtually unlimited true duplicates. If you don’t want to be mauled by Panda, it’s time for a change.
In other cases, though, it’s not so simple. What if you have a blog post URL like this?
It’s technically a “dynamic” URL, so should you change it to something like:
I doubt you’d see much SEO benefit, or that the rewards would outweigh the risks. In a perfect world, the second URL is better, and if I was starting a blog from scratch I’d choose that one, no question. On an established site with 1000s of pages, though, I’d probably sit tight.
(2) Unstructured URLs
Another common worry people have is that their URLs don’t match their site structure. For example, they have a URL like this one:
...and they think they should add folders to represent their site architecture, like:
There’s a false belief in play here – people often think that URL structure signals site structure. Just because your URL is 3 levels deep doesn’t mean the crawlers will treat the page as being 3 levels deep. If the first URL is 6 steps from the home-page and the second URL is 1 step away, the second URL is going to get a lot more internal link-juice (all else being equal).
You could argue that the second URL carries more meaning for visitors, but, unfortunately, it’s also longer, and the most unique keywords are pushed to the end. In most cases, I’d lean toward the first version.
Of course, the reverse also applies. Just because a URL structure is “flat” and every page is one level deep, that doesn’t mean that you’ve created a flat site architecture. Google still has to crawl your pages through the paths you’ve built. The flatter URL may have some minor advantages, but it’s not going to change the way that link-juice flows through your site.
Structural URLs can also create duplicate content problems. Let’s say that you allow visitors to reach the same page via 3 different paths:
Now, you’ve created 2 pieces of duplicate content – Google is going to see 3 pages that look exactly the same. This is more of a crawl issue than a URL issue, and there are ways to control how these URLs get indexed, but an overly structured URL can exacerbate these problems.
(3) Long URLs
How long of a URL is too long? Technically, a URL should be able to be as long as it needs to be. Some browsers and servers may have limits, but those limits are well beyond anything we’d consider sane by SEO or usability standards. For example, IE8 can support a URL of up to 2,083 characters.
Practically speaking, though, long URLs can run into trouble. Very long URLs:
- Dilute the ranking power of any given URL keyword
- May hurt usability and click-through rates
- May get cut off when people copy-and-paste
- May get cut off by social media applications
- Are a lot harder to remember
How long is too long is a bit more art than science. One of the key issues, in my mind, is redundancy. Good URLs are like good copy – if there’s something that adds no meaning, you should probably lose it. For example, here’s a URL with a lot of redundancy:
If you have a “/store” subfolder, do you also need a “/products” layer? If we know you’re in the store/products layer, does your category have to be tagged as “featured-products” (why not just “featured”)? Is the “featured” layer necessary at all? Does each product have to also be tagged with “product-“? Are the waffles so tasty you need to say it twice?
In reality, I’ve seen much longer and even more redundant URLs, but that example represents some of the most common problems. Again, you have to consider the trade-offs. Fixing a URL like that one will probably have SEO benefits. Stripping “/blog” out of all your blog post URLs might be a nice-to-have, but it isn’t going to make much practical difference.
(4) Keyword Stuffing
Scenarios (3)-(5) have a bit of overlap. Keyword-stuffed URLs also tend to be long and may cannibalize other pages. Typically, though a keyword-stuffed URL has either a lot of repetition or tries to tackle every variant of the target phrase. For example:
It’s pretty rare to see a penalty based solely on keyword-stuffed URLs, but usually, if your URLs are spammy, it’s a telltale sign that your title tags, <h1>’s, copy, etc. are spammy. Even if Google doesn’t slap you around a little, it’s just a matter of focus. If you target the same phrase 14 different ways, you may get more coverage, but each phrase will also get less attention. Prioritize and focus – not just with URLs, but all keyword targeting. If you throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, you usually just end up with a dirty wall.
(5) Keyword Cannibalization
This is probably the toughest problem to spot, as it happens over an entire site – you can’t spot it in a single URL (and, practically speaking, it’s not just a URL problem). Keyword cannibalization results when you try to target the same keywords with too many URLs.
There’s no one right answer to this problem, as any site with a strong focus is naturally going to have pages and URLs with overlapping keywords. That’s perfectly reasonable. Where you get into trouble is splitting off pages into a lot of sub-pages just to sweep up every long-tail variant. Once you carry that too far, without the unique content to support it, you’re going to start to dilute your index and make your site look “thin”.
The URLs here are almost always just a symptom of a broader disease. Ultimately, if you’ve gotten too ambitious with your scope, you’re going to need to consolidate those pages, not just change a few URLs. This is even more important post-Panda. It used to be that thin content would only impact that content – at worst, it might get ignored. Now, thin content can jeopardize the rankings of your entire site.
Proceed With Caution
If you do decide a sitewide URL change is worth the risk, plan and execute it carefully. How to implement a sitewide URL change is beyond the scope of this post, but keep in mind a couple of high-level points:
- Use proper 301-redirects.
- Redirect URL-to-URL, for every page you want to keep.
- Update all on-page links.
- Don’t chain redirects, if you can avoid it.
- Add a new XML sitemap.
- Leave the old sitemap up temporarily.
Point (3) bears repeating. More than once, I’ve seen someone make a sitewide technical SEO change, implement perfect 301 redirects, but then not update all of their navigation. Your crawl paths are still the most important signal to the spiders – make sure you’re 100% internally consistent with the new URLs.
That last point (6) is a bit counterintuitive, but I know a number of SEOs who insist on it. The problem is simple – if crawlers stop seeing the old URLs, they might not crawl them to process the 301-redirects. Eventually, they’ll discover the new URLs, but it might take longer. By leaving the old sitemap up temporarily, you encourage crawlers to process the redirects. If those 301-redirects are working, this won’t create duplicate content. Usually, you can remove the old sitemap after a few weeks.
Even done properly and for the right reasons, measure carefully and expect some rankings bounce over the first couple of weeks. Sometimes, Google just needs time to evaluate the new structure.
Hi Peter,
thanks for this post, which is surely clarifing many misconcepts people can have about URLs.
Personally, when I started years ago, I was the classic SEO filling the URLs with keywords... more over, I was over optimizing the same URLs structure like this:
www.domain.com/category-keyword/sub-category-keyword/keyword-keyword.html
The results were very spam-looking URLs.
But I was younger and dumber (I'm still dumb, but older).
Actually I try to craft very well how the URLs will be, and - if I'm optimizing a new site or a site that is going to redesigned, I always sit with the dev in order to create rules that can automatically deliver a good URL structure (or tweak existing CMS rules).
My idea is that URLs must be the simpler possible and help users (and bots) understanding exactly where they are in map.
Therefore I try to get obsessed with exact match keywords in url, but with partial yes.
Example: www.mobilephone.com/smarthphone/samsung/
If you notice, the URL structure could be used as breadcrumb too.
But when it comes to product pages, yes... I prefer to strip all categories and sub-categories from the URL in order to avoid potential duplication that could be originated by the fact a product can be listed in two or more (sub)categories.
www.mobilephone.com/galaxy-s.html
Finally... make the URL the simpler you can. Usability will increase, Linkability too... and Google Quality Raters will be happy and won't red cross your page. In fact, in the Google Quality Rater Handbook that for few days was available online (then retired by Google request), hiper stuffed URLs were one of the potential spam site signals.
But when you make 100% sure that a product isn't double listed, www.mobilephone.com/smarthphone/samsung/galaxy-s.html is 'the best' URL right? Also because this will probably be your main navigation structure.
You could make an extra category page like /android/samsung/ with an overview of Samsung mobilephones with Android. The shown products on that page could link perfect to their unique url: /smarthphone/samsung/galaxy-s.html.
For big sites with a lot of products in don't think it's optimal to place al products (hundreds/thousands) in the root on level 1.
What do you guys think?
I agree that having 1000s (or 10s of 1000s) of pages at the root level can get tricky and isn't always ideal. My concern is that category/subcategory URLs sometimes get very long, push back the more important keywords (both for search and users), and tend to cannibalize each other slightly. It's a balancing act and very situational, but I tend to like to keep product URLs as short as possible, especially since product names can be naturally long.
Yep, cannibalisation is always an issue. Looking at TV's for example, there you have also multiple URL options.
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4 (worst I think)
Option 5
Option 1 is how I would build my main navigation, so in this case it's a logical/optimal URL structure, right?
This is where the specifics/situation can really make a difference. The problem here is that the product names are just model #s, so while they're unique, they don't carry much meaning (either for bots or users). They're also fairly short. So, in your case, I do think Options 1 and 2 are decent.
I might lean toward 2, and leave the TV keywords (which are going to have a lot of variants) to other on-page factors, but I'd really have to know the industry better. Honestly, I don't think any of these options are particularly problematic, and I definitely wouldn't change from (2) to (1) or vise-versa just to make them 2% more optimal.
One side note - if you are going to include structural elements, then I think mimicing your architecture is important. So, between (1) and (3), if (1) is how your site is structured, than stick to that. It depends a bit on your business and content model.
Your first option, the one you prefer, can be the correct one..., but also option 2 is good. Also because I don't see potential duplication issues (plasma tv descriptions tend to be different from led ones for technological reason).
My concern, and that is why I suggest to consider also the flat url structure, is when the same product is listed in different categories. That is something very common to find in eCommerce administered by someone not so aware of the duplication issue (that's why so many eCommerce fell because of Panda).
To move to a maybe easier to understand field, think at blogs, where posts are listed in different categories and tags. If you use a domain/folder/post structure you will have as much duplicated content as the categories and tags you have listed your post in/with. That is why, in these cases, the flat option is the best one. And that is why to plan wisely the site architecture is essential.
Getting older is inevitable - getting smarter is a challenge for all of us :)
I think paths/sub-folders in category URLs can certainly make sense. I don't want to make this sound all or none, and I rarely advocate a 100% "flat" URL structure. I just see people obsess about it a bit too much, or worse, think that fixing their URLs is somehow a substitute for fixing a bad site architecture.
Totally right, Peter, in fact the site architecture is the first thing I check when auditing a site, as it were most of the time you can find the biggest problems. And I scream in pain when I see a subcategories one after the other.
The eventual optimization of URL comes as consequence of that analysis.
Finally, about 1000s of products... in that case I admit the flat structure maybe is not the best solution. In that case, the ideal should be to fix the canonical URL of that product and use it in any other URLs of the same product, if it was listed in more categories/sub categories.
"it comes to product pages, yes... I prefer to strip all categories and sub-categories from the URL in order to avoid potential duplication that could be originated by the fact a product can be listed in two or more (sub)categories"
potential duplicate content it is a complete different issue, not a problem at URLs structure level but you solve it the worng way, breaking one thing to solve another
Pete
Nice post, I'm actually up and can comment first :)
I have a question really, based upon your usability experience. Don't you think how the URL relates to the rest of the site/page is important? For example, that it matches (if not exactly, closely) your H1 and maybe even title tag? Or that (like "Don't make me think") it matches the anchor text you click on to get to that page, as well? So in other words, it is a piece of the overall page optimization that should harmonize with the other elements?
And also, as far as 'folders' whether virtual or not, does it make sense from a usability perspective to have them represent how many clicks deep you've gone from the homepage?
Curious to hear your thoughts!
-Dan
I've honestly never seen good data. There's so much data to suggest that people skim headlines and make decisions quickly, that I doubt the match is as powerful as we'd like to think. I do think shorter URLs tend to resonate with users, and URLs with relevant keywords get bolded, so that can be important.
Of course, that's just in the SERPs. Within a site, when browsing, a match between the path a visitor is taking and the URL could have an impact. Even then, though, I think it's small. Most people just don't watch the address bar that closely. You can easily reflect the path in breadcrubms and other on-page cues.
I've never seen the value of the virtual folder idea. No matter how big the site, we really ought to be able to come up with a unique URL for each product (node, article or whatever). Once everything is unique, using virtual folders is just diluting the value of the important keywords in the URL.
Shorter is always better I say.
have you any data to backup "using virtual folders is just diluting the value of the important keywords in the URL" or just a subjective opinion you have?
Sorry, no. It just seems common sense to me that if you want a page to rank for the word "blue" specifically, your best URL would be domain/blue whereas domain/colours/bright/blue adds words that dilute the strength. If I have a taxonomy like the one above, my site should return pages for "colours" and "bright" which want to rank for those words.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well, but put another way, each page I publish wants to rank for something, and I don't want other pages on my site, that are less relevant to that keyword to outrank it on that keyword.
Thanks for sharing, Pete.
You write "There’s a false belief in play here – people often think that URL structure signals site structure.". Totally agree here. One related point though is that URL structure probably should reflect the site structure, to make it more intuitive for both users and bots.
Yeah, I think that's a good way to say it. It's not that having structured URLs is inherently bad or that I'd always go for the "flat" version - it's just that I wouldn't painstakingly make your URLs match your crawl path, under the mistaken belief that that can fix a bad site architecture.
I think structured URL decisions have been the toughest SEO-wise because they are the most difficult to pull-back if you don't get it right.
IMO the URL structure depends if you are talking about a 100-page blog vs a 100,000 page ecommerce website. For a blog, having a flat structure generally makes sense and is easier to manage. For an enterprise website, having a structured URL can help provide topical relevance for search engines.
I've seen it both ways and there isn't one standard answer to the question. The answer it seems is "it depends".
This blog post is on right time for me. I can share one real time example with my website. I was not surviving with dynamic URLs but want to improve navigation structure and categorization.
URL structure for product page in my first website. You can use breadcrumb to know more about second level and first level category. I did not get that much SEO benefits. I can understand that, URL lenght is not only matter to get benefits but, it may create little negative impression during all stuffs.
https://www.lampslightingandmore.com/68_76_30057/7-5-ft-hexagon-beige-vinyl-patio-umbrella-with-white-aluminum-frame--crank-handle--tilt-button--fiberbuilt-outdoor--garden-umbrellas.html
Then, I have changed URL structure for product page in my second and third website. I have considered top level category name and manufacturer part number in URL structure. URLs for category pages are still same as above one. I have created category page URLs with folder structure which was described by Dr.Pete in section 3. I did not get that much benefits after solving URL structure of product pages. Because, category pages have very long URLs as previous one.
https://www.vistapatioumbrellas.com/marketumbrellas-californiaumbrella-gscu908-f08-huntergreen.html
https://www.vistastores.com/patioumbrellas-fiberbuiltumbrellasllc-7gcra-pacificblue.html
I am 100% agree with list of caution. Because, I have changed URL structure for my ecommerce website. ~7K URLs but, I am handling 301 redirect with very old practice. You can see my excel sheet.
Now, I am going to update URL structure with different manner which was suggested in section 2. You can view it more in excel sheet. I have followed all caution after changes of URLs.
So, What I achieved? In August 2011 Google have crawled only 756 pages. Right now, 5680 pages. I am still working on URL structure and will remove .html from URLs and all folder structure in next update. I will share my experience on this blog post very soon!
BTW: Dr.Pete... Thanks for such a great blog post on right time. This will help me more to make it more sharp.
It's not easy when it comes to real, complex e-commerce sites, that's for sure. The one warning I'd add is don't make changes too often and don't micro-tweet. Google can get suspicious about over-optimization, and I've seen people changing URLs sitewide every month or more for an extended period. It's almost never a good idea. Plan carefully and execute well.
Another great article Pete!
I think it's also important to note that category infused URLs need to be considered when a primary goal is to help boost the SEO for the category. Having
domain.com/horses/
domain.com/horses/ponies
domain.com/horses/ponies/shetland
is definitely a valid structure if you want to show "I've got 50 pages all highly related to horses, and 30 just related to ponies within that".
Like you point out though, most people take that notion way too far, and end up hurting themselves more than helping. Especially when they don't recognize that it's "just one more signal" and requires its own dedicated off-site effort with inbound link work pointing to each "level".
Do you find, though, that that really boosts the overall ranking? My concern (and it's really tough to piece apart the impact of just the URL) has always been that, while you're sending a signal about the site, you're also giving Google mixed signals about the most important page for that topic. It's not hardcore keyword cannibalization, but it's a kind of dilution. Meanwhile, for each of those URLs, you've pushed the most unique part down to the bottom.
Of course, it depends on whether you're really pushing to rank category pages (like a directory) or products pages, and none of your example URLs are long or spammy. I find it's always a balancing act.
if you have a 500 page site with 50 pages related to horses, and if you want success in the "horses" category, then there's no confusion of signals, only confirmation. If you want all fifty pages to be considered equal, but not rank for their common higher level topical focus, sure, skip the category layering. Just understand that it's going to take you that much more time to get all fifty to be recognized as being as valuable/important as all the others in that same level, right?
And as you point out in the article, it should be evaluated on a site by site, goal by goal basis.
I/we should probably point out that URLs are just one consideration. Obviously, there are a lot of other factors that signal topical focus, and the actual site architecture and topical structure is critical. You could also have category layering in your TITLEs, for example, but not in your URLs.
I only mention it because my original point of the post was to calm down some of the folks who get too hung up on these points. We've both worked with very large sites at times, and can still debate the nuances, so it's understandable that people get confused and even obsessed.
You're absolutely correct, of course, in the other methods/options, and I totally agree on the notion of people becoming lost/obsessed being something that doesn't help achieve goals...
Alan and Pete,
I maybe be one of the obsessed....so a quick question from an absolute novice.
If my category is my domain. www.horses.com. Should I use horses again after the domain. www.horses.com/horses/ponies or should I just use www.horses.com/ponies
I want to rank and link to 12 different pages on the "ponies" level in addition to ranking for my home page "horses.com.
There can be situations where you'd want to repeat a domain keyword, but in your particular example, I'd avoid it. You're really just making your URLs longer - it doesn't really help SEO or visitors. Now, it's fine to repeat if that's natural, like:
www.horses.com/blog/5-reasons-why-horses-are-awesome
That doesn't look spammy, and it's legitimate that a horse-focused site will use "horses" in the names of some pages. I just wouldn't add it as an unnecessary layer just to target the keyword.
Ah, the pitfalls of learning SEO! It's a discipline that requires big picture thinking, but you have to acquire a lot of knowledge and skills to even get close to seeing the big picture. It's a bit like climbing a mountain and thinking you've got to the top and found the holy grail, only to take a few steps forward and see yet another hill to climb. I think this is a well-written post which really puts the URL issue into perspective. Thanks for the sitemap tip - it's something that hadn't occurred to me before.
Good post. Thanks Pete.
We recently built a new site for a professional practice client (not huge about 30 to 40 pages total) and redirected his old (DA of 43) to new. In about 3 weeks all the juice was back and wonderful. A few weeks later - 10 days ago - we realized a keyword was not working as desired (it was a four word phrase and the third word made it rarely searched). We decided to change a url, titles, and H1 in a section - about 5 pages. We expected a dip and saw it, and now the pages are slowly climbing back.
When reading this I thought it was great and sent an email to our lead developer. As I was looking back over your list: "If you do,"...you might wanna be sure to.... I realized that we had made one slight (yeah right) error....we did not go back to the old site and change the 301 on those 5 urls. A dumb mistake on our part given this affects a 20% slice of his practice.
I just sent an email suggesting we rapidly make that change. Thanks for the wake up moment.
Pete -
I think you hit the nail on the head as far as the risk/reward thing is concerned. We should all remember that it is a relatively large undertaking to change a lot of URLs on an existing domain. Ideally, maybe, we'd all use the domain.com/insert-title-here format, but that's just not practical in many cases, especially in some large (I'm thinking enterprise) companies.
I've been dealing with a large site that uses domain.com/first-level/page-name-(numbers). Those numbers are not for Google News purposes, but I decided that recommending them change the URLs to remove the numbers was simply not worth the time/effort. As long as these URLs are not creating duplicate content (I did find a couple of instances of this, btw, and am getting those fixed), and the URLs have relevant keywords (they do), it's just not worth the work/risk/reward/ROI.
Great example - the number string doesn't add anything, but practically speaking, it's probably short, it's at the end of the URL, and the core keywords/structure are unaffected. In a perfect world, it wouldn't be there, but making a sitewide change just to dump it is probably risky and time poorly spent.
"Keyword cannibalization results when you try to target the same keywords with too many URLs."
I see this happen all too frequently. Site owners/bloggers get fixated on one or two keywords and try to squeeze it into every URL. You need to target variations! It's much more natural and accounts for the different ways people actually search.
I think it's also just a strategic error. I don't think having 100s of pages on a site target the same keywords makes that site look stronger to Google, even for those keywords. Naturally, you'll have some overlap on any site, but for key terms, it's much better to focus them on one page. I see this with TITLE tags, too - people tack on the entire home-page TITLE (not just the brand, but 5-10 words) at the front or back. Now, you're leaving it to Google and sending a mixed message about your own priorities.
Another point for short urls: google prefers short urls and crawls them first. I would also bet they rank better (ceteris paribus).
The title of this post highlights the continuing, ongoing, ridiculous disconnect between SEO, content, and architecture in web design.
You should never need to change URLs for SEO, they should be designed properly when they are created. SEO is a basic part of web design, no less than content creation! (Because content no one can find may as well not exist.)
If your site is 10 years old, Google has probably figured it out. Let that go. Just design all your new stuff correctly from now on.
We have a long way to go people. Good luck!
Agree!
"You should never need to change URLs for SEO" "Just design all your new stuff correctly from now on."
Never do X.... but really you should do x
?????
I'm sorry I really was stopped in my tracks by "you're eating taco shells with mayonnaise for lunch and your cat is dead."
Are you implying taco shells are NOT a good lunch option?
Otherwise very cool article!
Thanks Pete -
I deal with a lot of URLs changes at my organization. A great tool to make sure that you're catching all your internal links (and not just using the 301s to move people around the site) is the SEO Spider by Screaming Frog.
I use this program nearly daily on our sites to look for inconsistencies. Run a internal only scan and look for the HTTP header codes that 301 (you can filter the list to only these). From there, it's a easy "To Do" list to find and fix.
Take the time you save with this, and educate the rest of your team on why changing URLs and not telling anyone is bad.
"changing URLs and not telling anyone is bad." I run into this all the time! Thanks for the resource.
What a great post, Pete!
I've always thought URLs were one of the core elements in any SEO strategy. Personally, I like to use the term smart URLs, in order to name those easily remembered ones - for me this is so crucial. At the end, there is a person who is visiting our website, so we must focus on build it as human-friendly as possible, without losing sight of search engines.
I prefer to use URLs like www.example.com/the-name-of-the-product Probably, this option makes us repeat some words in different URLs (e.g. there is a red product and a green one), but finally we are passing on that we take care about our visitors' experience.
I hope to hear your comments about that question.
Thanks for this great post.
Sergio
That questions gets into some issues of how you let Google index your site. In some cases, I think it's better to focus on the "main" product level, and possibly even NOINDEX or canonicalize versions (like sizes, colors, etc.). At that point, the URLs aren't as critical (since they aren't being indexed - you can leave them for visitors). It really depends on a lot of factors, though. Sometimes, the colors are highly searched for and there are only a couple of variants. Other times, no one searches for variants and each product X color X size can have 100s of pages (creating a ton of near-duplicates). There's no one-sized-fits-all (no pun intended) answer.
Yes, I agree with you. I forgot the way Google index a site. Then we come into another aspect of SEO, but it's good to take it into account, because this gives us the chance of realizing about the holistic nature of SEO. Finally, SEO is not a rigid block of actions but a flowing stream of interactions within it. One aspect affect the others and viceversa.
I LOVE SEO!!!
Thanks for your comment.
Rand Fishkin halloween mask anyone?
I'm not sure there is anything wrong with eating taco shells and mayonnaise for lunch.
I was thiking the same thing.
If that's your go-to lunch, then no offense intended :) I was trying to come up with one of those "This is all I have left in the fridge and I'm too busy to shop" meals.
Great post, Pete.
With regards to #2, maybe I'm being naïve here (off-site SEO's more my specialty) but if someone builds a website with this URL structure for their product landing page...
joebloggs.com/keyword-stuffing-folder/product-page
...but the 1st level doesn't exist (e.g. if someone chops the end off and tries to access joebloggs.com/keyword-stuffing-folder, they get a 404), then would this be a signal to Google that you're purely manipulating the URL to stuff keywords? Do you reckon it is something they can detect? If not now, do you reckon it might be something they could (or would want to) detect in the future?
I know a web designer who lives by this tactic, but I'm hugely wary of it. All internal links to products pages jump to the 2nd level, where the 1st level doesn't exist (it's purely an excuse to get the keyword in the URL a second time), but because it doesn't reflect the site structure, it feels like a spammy approach to me. I know you said that's a "false belief" anyway, but surely that's because it's a general usability expectation by people that higher levels represent higher pages/sections of the website. And therefore, at least for that reason, it should still be honoured.
Of course, like you say, the best bet is to keep it short anyway, which would mean only having what's absolutely necessary in there in the first place, but aside from that, what if someone believes it's a great, valuable tactic (although risky, if it is even risky at all)?
Thanks, would love to know your thoughts (and everyone else's).
I'm not sure Google treats sub-folder keywords that differently from "page" keywords, so I'd look more at the overall keyword-stuffing impact. The bigger downside, IMO, is that now you've got dozens or 100s of pages that all target the same keywords (in the URL, at least), and the unique keywords in those URLs are pushed down to a less prominent position. To me, you really want to get the most unique and relevant information up front, for both bots and visitors.
I also agree about the expectation. Someone is going to try to find that folder and won't. I've even seen (although fairly rarely) issues where Google tried to crawl a sub-folder, as if they were testing the waters, and a 404 appeared even though there were no internal links.
I don't think you have a point here, simply because by default this is the kind of urls wordpress will create for you:
category url: www.abc.com/category/category-name/
post url: www.abc.com/category-name/post-title/
By your or the designer's reasoning, the post url might be considering spammy cause www.abc.com/category-name/ is not found actually ey. I don't think search engine will want to penalize webmasters who are not very technical and leave defualt structures as is.
That's interesting, I didn't realise .../category/ pages on WordPress were 404's. Fair enough then. In that case Google probably shows leniency towards sites who aren't necessarily gaming the system, but who have made a mistake or not taken those types of things into consideration.
I wasn't trying to make a point though, I was just asking a question, which you've helped to answer. Thank you :-)
This it's really important that you've highlighted various factors in this:-
1. People rarely paying great attention to the address bar2. Some things are just not worth the return on investment3. There is great scope for ranking losses
I think we can get hooked up on one SEO ranking factor out of 200+ and although URLs should be considered it should be in the context of other site factors and not obsessed over.
Thanks for this article - a great reference of all things SEO URLs!
Great topic!
Seems to be a "simple" process regarding the onpage optimization but obviously many aspects and no-go's arise. Thumbs up!
Hi,
I think the most interesting point on this post is point 6 on the proceed with caution - that's very good advice and something a lot of people do forget to do.
A
"There’s a false belief in play here – people often think that URL structure signals site structure" Again we are mixing concepts here, flat site architecture and content structure but in any case let me point something.
If you take a look at SERPs some results show green breadcrumbs (several links, something like www.carparts.com › Engine › Cooling) instead just the URL of the page.
Now we have an especific schema microformat to tag on page breadcrumbs but till now and taking a look to a quite a large number of those results, what seems to be a relevant factor triggering SERPs breadcrumbs is structured URLs even for sites not having on-page one.
Conclusion: Yes, URL structure signals site structure unless, of course, your URL structure is so crappy that leads Search Engines to misunderstandings.
Thanks Pete for the infos.
This article is really relevant for me now because I've just made a big change in the URL structure of my site from (%postname%) to (%category%/%postname%).
Anyway, thanks for the great article!
So, the summary is:
Oh, and the most important: PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION!!!! Come on, we all know that this is one of the biggest mistakes that webmasters and business owners do!
I think, there is wery important to keep old sitemap on the web for a several weeks, to let googlebot to reindex all pages
Great post, I've always grappled with the decision about how long a URL should be, and what it should contain.
Am I right in thinking that the following example:
www.domain.com/audi-A4-ipod-input-adapter.html
is better than:
www.domain.com/ipod-adapters/audi-ipod-adapters/audi-A4-ipod-adapter.html ?
Url structure is really important of a site. I have one site searoptimal(.)com which has 301 redirection issue and for that I really faced problem to doing seo. Thanks for the nice post.
Nice article. Two questions: Is it good for SEO to include a keyword multiple times in the url? For example in a webshop: If the domain already contains a general keyword should you use it in the sub categories if it makes sense? Or a keyword in a subcategorie which could be also used on the product page?
Is there a posivtive correlation for using the same keywords or phrases in the url and title tag?
Hi! I have been trying to organize my blogsite. I have 54 posts so far and wanted to trim down my categories from 18 to just well, 5. Can I do that? its not even that established my blog so I figured it wouldn't really hurt as much. Should I do a 301 with every blog post? I'm afraid the permalinks will change though because its old category will be deleted and changed to one generic category. Thanks super for the help! :-)
Kristine
Do you have the categories in the post URL? Ideally, I'd move away from that - it tends to cause a lot more problems down the road and makes changes tougher. If the blog post has a unique URL, then you're just talking about 18 category URLs, and it's much easier to change them.
If the post URLs change, then you do need to do 301-redirects. If the change is important to you, it does probably make sense to do it sooner rather than later, because there's always some risk.
Thank you! This has been very helpful. Yes, right now the post URLs like:
www.domain.com/category/post-url
Ideally, I will be changing all categories and organizing them now. You suggest permalinks will be better if:
www.domain.com/post-url
then a redirect is in order. I've installed https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-301-redirects/ plugin. I hope its ideal. You've just saved my blog :-) Kisses!
Hi, I didn't quite understood the #4 Don’t chain redirects, if you can avoid it. Does it mean there shouldn't be many redirects? It's more of a language problem for me I guess.
I want to remove the "crystal-nailfiles-accessoires-interior_" from our urls. It was done a long tiem ago, and it's really not comfortable to use.
https://www.czech-glass-nail-files.com/crystal-nailfiles-accessoires-interior_24-about_us.php
Sorry, by "chain redirects" I mean a redirect to a redirect to a redirect, etc. In other words, don't 301-redirect to a URL that then 301-redirects to another URL, if you can help it. Two 301s in a row won't kill you, but I've seen chains of four and five redirects that ended in a 302 and were acting completely different than expected (from an SEO standpoint).
Great article!
Recently I had someone suggest buying keyword rich domain names, hosting them and then redirecting them to your established site. Do you think that would be helpful for SEO purposes?
Thank you!
It used to be a common tactic, but the effectiveness has really dropped over the years, especially if you abuse it. In other words, don't buy 50 domains with high PR that aren't relevant to your site, and then just 301-redirect them. Google will devalue those domains, and you'll have wasted your money.
On the other hand, if you buy a couple of relevant domains and redirect them, will that care value? Yes, very likely. Keep in mind that, once you redirect them, you're mainly getting the value of the other domains' link profiles. Post-redirect the exact-match aspect doesn't really help you that much - it's more abou the history they've build with that domain.
Thank you!
Hi
I got useful information from your post. In fact i was thinking that if i create dirctory inside directory than it will be considerd as a deep link.I just want top ask one thing.
I have a site. I want to create directory like URL for my site. Please tell me which one will be good or they are same.
https://www.paridhiinfotech.com/link-building/directory-submission
https://www.paridhiinfotech.com/link-building/directory-submission.html
In a perfect world, I think the extensionless version (without ".html") looks better, but for SEO purposes, the impact is very, very small. It essentially comes down to 5 extra characters on the end, and that's not going to have a measurable impact in most cases.
Great that you are brining this topic out especially when SEO strategy plays a very significant role to stay on the top. For the sake of SEO, I have even registered a new domain that consist of high traffic keywords of my niche. For now, I could not comment anything about it as I am looking for further testing and results. Good thing I am able to read this post todayt/
Hi guys,
a question i have url like this: www.mysite.com/mycategory/item/myproduct.html the word "item" does not change so i want to use good keyword instead.
so in my php file i can change the word "item" to a better keyword but when i do this all my sites that is listed in google show up 300 error now. offcourse that is from changing the url word "item"
as i have about 500 listed urls in google so my question is: can i add something to .htaccess to make the word "item" change to my new "keyword"appreciate any help, warm regards Anders
Awesome pose. I have been trying different URL structures for my personal websites and not even thought of half the stuff you have in here nor have the time to do each and every one. Guess I need to learn a bit more before doing all this about changing and 301 re-directing... lol, this makes me look like a newb.
Firstly great tips on URL construction and optimisation! Your posts sums up perfectly the dangers of becoming fixated on one particular element of SEO. It's true unless it's a catastrophic SEO oversight such as the inclusion of a noindex tag on a page, fixating on one particular SEO element can actually result in you missing out on other simpler optimisation opportunities!
Wish I had read this before I deleted my old sitelinks from Webmaster Tools. Changed my URL structure to delete the "www" and lost all my indexed pages. 301 redirects are all up and working, but now I have to sit around and wait for Google to re-index me. Super-annoying.
How make long URL with long title in blogger platform? for example the title is "Promo Member Alfamart Minimarket Lokal Terbaik Indonesia" and the URL https://imuzcorner.blogspot.com/2012/04/promo-member-alfamart-minimarket-lokal.html
Can we make it long title? or if we can't make it long title with long url blog post is it work for SEO? please help me how make it better? I ask to SEOMOZ because you have the best SEO program. Thank you!
Hi. I am updating a site I have for lovers of Spain (cinema, culture etc). The domain name is "facesofspain.com".
I have a section of the site which deals with Spanish Cinema.
At the moment my root Url for this topic is "facesofspain.com/cinema". I want to optimize this part of the site for the key words "Spanish Cinema". Would there be any advantage in adjusting the root Url to "facesofspain.com/spanish-cinema" (with appropriate redirects of course)?
Or would any advantage gained by doing this be offset by the resulting increase in the length of the Urls? At the moment, a typical Url for this section is
https://www.facesofspain.com/Cinema/Films/103/lobos-de-arga
The site at the moment is a bit crude, and is not getting much traffic (and I imagine it has, at present, no incoming links.) But I hope to change that with the improvements I'm currently making. If I were to make the change, now would be the time to do it.
I should be very grateful if you would give me your opinion. Thanks.
Definetely should include your main keyword in url.
Nice post, great tips on URL.. worth reading it.
highly recommended.
Great post Pete, Very often I come across questions like this considering working for a site with over a million indexed pages in the SEs. Now changing the URLs in most cases would not be an option.
Having a functional & effective redirect system comes in handy..
Planning is usually a good start for any successful site change ie URL, Nav - Content mapping..
Thanks Jay
Excellent info, Thanks. May I ask a question?
Let's say I have 2 domain names and I want to pick the best one to target "Hawaii Holiday" search queries. Which one do you think is better:1. www.hawaiiholidaydestinations.com or2. www.hawaiian-holiday.com
I have a big Doubt on Shot Url. For example, if i want to pass link juice to my blog url
https://www.bestcouponcodes.in/coupons/flipkart-cou...
Now i shorten this url to
https://goo.gl/er4IAJ
Now,
if i use this short url, can i get link juice passed to my site?
We required some more structural changes that can help SEO.
Hi Peter,
I have recently restructured the urls of my site. Before doing this I read this post and followed your advice. Everything is fine with the website. A slight traffic loss till now. But in the webmaster tool, what I am seeing that the old urls and the new urls are showing up in duplicate titles and descriptions. All the old urls are 301ed. So, no issues with that. But I am concerned, will this duplicated harm my site and how to solve this issue. Your advice will be appreciated. Thanks
Sorry, but that's really tough to diagnose in a general sense. It could just be a matter of time - Google does take a while to process and dump the old URLs, even if you do everything right. I'd make sure, though, that your 301s are operating properly (verify with a header checker - or two). Also, make sure that no other signals are conflicting with your 301s. For example, if you 301-redirect URL A-->B, but then you have canonicals back to (A) or all your internal links are to the (A) versions, you could be sending mixed signals and making Google's job harder.
Great information... love it... keep the information train coming...
Hi there. I have create a new site about motorcycle gear, accessories and apparels and i have choosen a domain name that i think is brandable. the domain name is : Dragfever.com
Do you think it is a good domain ?
Sorry to have woken up the debate again :)
If you are dealing with an e-commerce site that could expand as long as you have careful management and planning around URLs having categories in them, for example having 1/2 categories in the URL at most as opposed to the product being placed in the root folder - could either work. So for example:
www.companyname.com/garden-benches/hungate-2-seater
versus
www.companyname.com/hungate-2-seater-bench
It seems that people have different opinions on it and no way is particularly best but you just need to understand what discipline is required to make the option you take leverage the best.
Is this correct or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Thanks!
Louise
(now I need to look up the originas of the phrase barking up the wrong tree :) )
Hi there!
Thanks for commenting! You may actually have better luck getting a response, though, if you post to the Moz Q&A forum. There are a lot of experts in there who love to discuss these topics, but they're not too likely to see it on a 4-year-old blog post. ;)
Thanks! Good luck!
This is really helpful information for those not well-versed in web design and coding. Thanks for the tips and great read!
I really appreciate this article which is extremely helpful. However, I would be grateful if you could advise me on the following issue which I want to confirm before making my new website 'live'.
I had asked my web designers to create the 'products' section of my website with the facility to have a parent/child/ type page structure to organise the various product categories in a logical format. This would have been 3-4 directories deep on the most complex products.
However, instead they have created a totally 'flat' structure for my product pages. This means that there are around 50 pages on the same directory level in the www.domain/products/.... section of my website. The categories are now being used to organize the products with the same hierarchy which I had wanted to structure the URL's into.
This has also caused another issue in that instead of the product type being clear from the directory path on the URL, only the product name now appears after the www.domain/products/... of the site. I think that this will make the URL appear less intuitive in the SERPs. To try to resolve the issue of not having the details from the directory path in the URL, I have been considering adding the category keywords into the start of the slug to explain the product. However, I'm concerned this may be considered to be keyword stuffing?
E.G. www.domain.com/products/smoke-detector IS CHANGED TO www.domain.com/products/fire-detection-methods-smoke-detector.
If the URL had had the originally requested directory path, it would have read www.domain.com/products/fire-alarms/fire-detection-methods/smoke-detector
Question:
Will the absence of a URL hierarchy affect my SEO performance, or will the search engines still be able to index my site effectively? Should I request the designers to redesign the way that the products section works, or should I focus my efforts on on-page SEO rather than worrying about the URLs? From a CMS usability issue it's not really a problem.
I'm mindful of your comment at the top about getting fixated on a tactic, but if I need to change something, now is the best time to do it!
Many thanks, I look forward to your comments! Apologies for the length and complexity of this post, but i trust that you are able to offer some assistance with this question!
Hi! Since this post is 5 years old, I suggest heading to our Q&A forum, either to find people who've asked similar questions or to ask it there yourself.
very thanks this fantastic but imagine i migrate wordpress to Dedicated cms and old URLs change do you have a solution for this probleam?
Thanks for clarifying this up for me.
Regards,
Hafiz
Hi,
Please give me an advice. On my site based on opencart I sell stickers: laptop stickers, wall-sticker, car stickers.
Now my url structure looks like this, taking for example the wall-stickers:
wall-stickers/animal-wall-stickers/cat-wall-sticker
Is this ok? Looking on google keyword tool, I've noticed that the most searches are on cat sticker and not cat-wall-sticker and I thought changing the url of the product from cat-wall-sticker to cat-sticker. But the problem is I have cat-sticker also on car stickers category or laptop stickers and the canonical url would look the same (cat-sticker), also same problem with category, I have animal-wall-stickers and animal-laptop-stickers.
And the title of the page should be the same : Cat sticker or it's a better one: cat sticker - wall-decorations - wall sticker ?
Thank you very much in advance.
I read all of them but I can't get what url rewrite structure is better for ecommerce with many products, what do you think about the follwing options for a new starting project?
Example:
1- www.domain.com/jackets/winter-jackets/nike-375-model-a-black-winter-jacket
2- www.domain.com/jackets/winter-jackets/nike-375-model-a-black
3- www.domain.com/winter-jackets/nike-375-model-a-black-winter-jacket
4- www.domain.com/winter-jackets/nike-375-model-a-black
5- www.domain.com/nike-375-model-a-black-winter-jacket
6- www.domain.com/nike-375-model-a-black
Menu and breadcumb would reflect 1/2 option but levels seems too deep and not adding more info to the URL. So even if it do not reflect navigation, I am leaning towards option 3/4 with detailed category only.
Obiosuly the pages jacket and winter jacket exist anyway even with option 5/6 even if not repeated in each url.
Usually cms make url rewrite of the link from the title so most of the time they will be the same. Is it important to add "the winter jacket" (desciption of the item) to the title of every product or it is enough in the category url? If category is in the title like option 1/3/5 I will have hundreds of products with keyword winter jacket under a winter jackets category. Please notice also plural of the category url and singular on the product url (some category name are often written different when plural).
I like 5/6 option for flexibility which is a big pro, you could update and split product in to new categories whenever needed while the store expand without loosing product url. It will also avoid possible duplication within different categories. I think option 5 is much used from very big stores.
Aside that I am still worried about dropping option 3/4 which may be more end user intuitive and could target the long tail detailed category keyword better, still have repetition in final product url or title.
Any thoughts?
Take into consideration: Google prefers and crawls short urls first
If seomoz's On-page tool is telling me to either shorten my url or put my keywords in my url, but I'm already in position 1 on Google, do you think I should leave it alone?
I'm guessing that yes, I should leave it alone. If so, at what point do you think it makes sense to change it?
Thanks,Phil
if you are in position 1 for the phrase(s) you care about, there is no valid reason to change URL structure. In fact, doing so could trigger other issues, just one of which could be over-optimization. Always take a cautious approach to implementing keyword additions with a site or page you care significantly about.
I changed my URL from a great local long tail SEO url to my business name. My old URL had my local community name within the URL www.TriCitiesRealEstateAgent.com then I was thinking that when I expand into new cities I should just have my business name. So I set up a 301 to www.RealEstateMarketLeaders.com. Before the 301 I was on the first page of Google. Since the URL has been changed I have given up on SEO. I can't get google to took at my site anymore. However, Yahoo seems to love my site. Any feedback would be appreciated.
1. Actually, i regret i read this post after i change my url. But still i don't understand. this.
domain/1st-cat/2nd-cat/post-with-keyword
domain/1st-keyword-cat/2nd-keyword-cat/post-with-keyword
At first my url like the first one but some of category not optimize keyword.So, i change it with the second one. Is it this url spammy? I try to change this url because some traffic i get because keyword in url.
2. For point number two you state that url structure for category and tag. I have many url in my blog have structure like that. Is it this url will give duplicate content?
3. Right now i don't know the best url structure.
domain/category/post-name or domain/post-name
I have many question to ask about url structure but don't know how to ask.
(1) Unfortunately, I think your second version could look over-optimized and might cannibalize your own keywords. If you just changed it, though, changing it back right away could be worse than just leaving it alone. Monitor it and see what happens.
(2) That's a complex problem that can be hard to give general advice about. Sometimes, you just end up with too many internal links and multiple paths to the same place, and it can dilute your link-juice flow. If the final pages keep the category/tag in the URL, you can definitely end up with duplicate content. You don't want to have:
...all resolving to the same content. That's definitely going to create duplicates.
Dr. Pete
I am doing online SEO for a site. I am thinking of changing its present category URLs. I am thinking of changing
1. "www.mysite.com/services" to "www.mysite.com/services/digital-agency-services"
2. "www.mysite.com/services/software" to www.mysite.com/digital-agency-services/software-development
Though after reading your article I think I am thinking of the right thing, would be glad if you could comment on it. Please let me know the pros and cons.
Hi,
Sorry, I know this post has been around a while, but I was hoping someone could answer a question.
I recently put up a new site (within the last two months).
For one of my most important service pages, I chose a URL with very moderate searches. In the title, I used that keyword phrase first then a Secondary keyword. Now, I'm wishing I had made the current secondary keyword my primary keyword and had used that in the URL instead.
For Example I now have: MySite(dot com)/ Current-Primary-Keyword
I'm thinking of changing URL to: MySite(dot Com)/Current-Seconday-Keyword
And, changing the page title from: Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword
TO: Current Secondary Keyword | Current Primary Keyword
In other words, I'm thinking of switching them around.
I currently rank better for the secondary keyword than the primary. Also, I'm starting to think I'll see more business come my way focusing on what is now my Secondary Keyword.
Not much else on the page would change.
Help! I could really use a little advice.
Thanks!
Hai I have a doubt in urls . we are creating online supermarket website.
Is following URL is correct can we use for Google or Google will considers as penalty URL (panda effect)
www.123zye.com/online/online-grocery-store-usa-buy-groceries-shopping
sir,i have url as suggested and all..But still i am unable to climb up my site at :seocontestatiiithyderabadp.blogspot.comto first result when searched for :seocontestatiiithyderabadany tips please, if possible ??
I have a question about the site structure that I'm playing around with on my new blog with some pretty deep category links.
The structure goes along the lines of:
www...com/internet-marketing/social-media/facebook/post-name
I'm torn because I know it's pushing it with 3 categories before the post name, but I think it will be good for user experience to be able to browse through the various categories for posts. I suppose I could do without one of the levels, but I'm curious to hear what people think.
Thanks!
David
Changing urls could be a good thing if your name/links weren't SEO friendly or if you decide you want to put your keyword in your urls. I was thinking about it but then I'll have to resubmit to the list of business directories that I have already done submissions for. Not to mention all the backlinking too.
You could set up 301 redirects from old pages to new. The list (1-6) at the end of this article seem pretty thorough. You'll keep most of your link juice from backlinks too by doing proper redirects.
Hey everyone. I work for an environmental equipment company... we are a small business that rents and sells equipment. I am wondering if having two separate pages for the same piece of equipment is a major issue in my case since there is some duplicate page content. I am also unsure what a good structure for URLs would be. The current setup is:
for rental items it is: www.domain.com/rentals/equipmentname.html
for sale items it is: www.domain.com/products/equipmentname.html
Since they are in different folders...is it okay for them to have the same URL at the end (equipmentname.html)?
The reason we have two separate pages for rentals vs sales of the same piece of equipment is because you can purchase the equipment with or without many different features. Since our rental equipment has a specific setup, we include that information on the rental page. The sales page for the same piece of equipment would include all of the different setups available for that instrument.
This site is over 10 years old and it doesn't look like SEO was a consideration when it was developed. It is a project that has been given to me, and I am still new to SEO. There are a lot of URLs that could really be optimized I am just having a hard time considering if it is worth changing them and the best way to go about it. We rank pretty well considering how small our company is and the keywords we rank for.
Any thoughts? Thanks!
The URLs are ok, but you could have duplicate content issues if these pages are too similar (it sounds like they differ a bit, but I'm not sure by how much). You could also be cannibalizing your own keywords by trying to get two pages to rank for the same equipment name. It's not that you get penalized or anything, but it could weaken your ranking ability.
It depends a lot on the content and the scope. If you're talking about a dozen pieces of equipment, I wouldn't worry about it. If you're talking about 5,000, that's a different story. In that case, I might consider something like one main page for each piece of equipment that splits into both a purchase and rental page - those last two pages would be NOINDEX'ed or canonical'ed back up to the parent page. For search purposes, each product would have one parent page.
Of course, that's based on a very shallow understanding of your problem. It really does depend a lot on the details of the situation.
Thanks for the response, Dr. Pete! The way these pages are setup most of it is duplicate content. The information is pretty much copy pasted from the manufacturer's specs for both the rental and sales page. There are only a few minor differences between the rental and sale page in most cases.
We have a small website, our largest category of instruments only has 21 different pieces of equipment, the next largest around 15. We rank well for a lot of things, I am just trying to determine where we can further improve our website. I think we rank well because we have a good domain name and our site has been around for a while.
We want to be able to rank for rental keyword searches as well as people looking to purchase the same item. The hard part is knowing how to separate the two without having duplicate content. I am not sure if my focus should be on optimizing these individual equipment pages or if our site structure needs to be changed all together.
Here is an example of a rental page and the equivalent sales page from our website:
Rental Page
https://www.enviroequipment.com/rentals/RAESystems_QRAEII_GasMeter_Rental.html
Sales Page
https://www.enviroequipment.com/products/qraeii.html
The URLs here are different to a degree, but neither of them are optimized or follow a general structure for how they were created. The page content is almost identical.
Do you have any suggestions as far as a general direction you think I should head in to improve our website?
I appreciate your time!
If you're talking about a hundred pages or so, and you definitely want to rank for both rental and purchase, you may be better off leaving things alone. The near-duplicates will dilute your overall ranking ability slightly, but if you canonicalize them, you'll probably lose some of your traffic for rentals. I'd consider the user experience, too - I'm not quite sure how both options are navigated. I don't think there's a clear "right" answer here - some trade-offs either way.
I think we probably are better off leaving things as is like you mentioned. It would take a lot of time and effort to make any changes which may only have a minimal impact. Most of our customers that I have talked to during the time I have been managing our website haven't had any issues with the navigation. I'm sure there are ways for improvement but overall I think we are okay in that aspect.
Thanks for all of your insight! This blog really is a great resource. Keep up the good work.
I think there should be a close relationship between user exepreince and SEO when it comes to URL structures. The last thing you want is a keyword stuffed throughout the URL making it appear horrible to the eye.
I'm very interested! I would love to find out more inforamtion related to this topic.
Whats the best program to make a sitemap.xml?? I have a huge site and an old sitemap, this is not good correct?
That was a very morbid opening but amusing and full of good points. +1 internets for you Dr. Pete... keep the good blog posts coming.
Good points all - but you omit any mention of strategies and tactics which we'll all soon need to be forming with the coming new gTLDs (generic top level domains).
Even the best and brighetst SEO guys/gals aren't sure of what the full implications will be vis a vis Google's algo changes, the user experience, page authority etc.
But we do know this: the fundamental restructuring of the domain naming systems will change forever how brands live, are discovered and sustain across all digital channels.
SEO may become twice as important for the online brand if smart gTLD strategies effectively disintermediate Google's importance in driving brand discovery and social signals lending authority to branded content.
I look forward to learning more - from awesome forums like SEOMoz - re: what the hell we're all planning ondoing about it all!
Thom Kennon | @tkennon | + Thom Kennon | bigevidence.blogspot.com
I don't honestly expect the generic TLDs to have a huge impact for most of us, and a lot of it depends on adoption. So many times, we've seen major hype over a new TLD (like .me), and a land-grab, only to have the long-term impact be negligible.
With the generic TLDs, I don't even expect a land-grab, because at least for now, they're prohibitively expensive. As that loosens up over the years, things may change, but it's going to take a while. People get fixated on certain standards, and displacing .com won't happen in weeks or probably even months.
The TLD that I'm watching most closely right now is .co. Some companies are making major pushes (like Overstock rebranding to O.co), and Google have recently said publicly (via Matt Cutts) that they treat .co as a generic domain now (it's technically Colombia). If you can't get the .com you want, I think .co is worth a look.
I think it will change a lot of what we do when it comes to conenctingbrands and human, i just wish i knew in what ways, how much and when.
I think the most interesting generics are going to be the category names which they are going to award to "communities" - things like .insurance .sneakers .coffee .wine .investment whoa nelly what that get hot and stay hot.
The thing is, they are planning on only releasing up to 1,000 new .NAMES in the first application period e.g. opens in 1.12, closes in 4.12 and released and rolled out in 2013. ICANN claims they want to guage the uptake, usage and affect of this first tranche before opening up the next application window.
This could srve to freeze out any brands or "communities" who do not apply and launch in the first generation for up to 4 years. That's a lot of time to lose to disruptive competition.
I don't now about you but I have never seen a .co show up in any SERPS
Part of what's tricky about it is that the companies using it most effectively, like Overstock, are mainly using it for branding/shortening purposes. So, they use "O.co" on TV, but then 301-redirect to Overstock.com (and you never see it in the SERPs). I'm seeing a lot of that, so it's a bit tough to gauge the "true" effectiveness.
For large sites, rewriting URL's is one of the highest impact activities you can do. But I'm curious about this sentence. "...if crawlers stop seeing the old URLs, they might not crawl them to process the 301..." Do you have a reference for this?
No, that's mostly from experience. Obviously, the XML sitemap is not the only cue to crawling, and any prominent URL (in the navigation, linked to externally, etc.) is going to get re-crawled without much trouble. The bigger problem I see is the very deep, long-tail URLs, that might not have strong links. Keeping the old XML sitemap up is a nudge to Google to recrawl those.
In general, though, one thing is undeniably true. If a URL isn't crawled, the 301-redirect won't be processed. At that point, Google will have to find the new URL by other means. Again, they often can, but the kick in the spider's butt never hurts.
HI Pete,
This is a project that I'm working on right now to improve some very dynamic URLs, and the sitemap tip is great, that never crossed my mind. Thanks!
Hillarious opener "you’re eating taco shells with mayonnaise for lunch, and your cat is dead." Very relatable on many levels to all computer related task. Thanks for taking the time to write this post
Thanks for eduction about URL structure and other interesing facts. But, I haven't personal experience with changing URLs and 301 but read many times (and you Pete support that fact) that any change of current URL (for SEO purpose) may result with loosing SERPs and traffic. I would rather "play" with content and try to work on keyword densty than change URL. If there is any study about efects on URL change please let me know, I am very interested to see results. Second important fact is that your 301 after changing URL will loose weight during time. Only thing you can do is to contact websites which gave you links in order to change URL. But, what if you have several thousands of links pointed to this site??? I would rather not change URL if page stays for few months and have decent amount of backlinks. One more thing that "G" is telling us for last 1-2 years and that weight of keyword in URL will be devalated during time (I support that process for elimination of MFA sites and other spam). We all know what would be main purpose of changing URL, but I am not sure in long term effects of this procedure?Once again thanks Pete for comprehensive post here!
Thanks pete for your post, I have a question regarding rtl languages like Persian, Arabic etc..
I'm optimizing a Persian website and all my keywords are persian which are rtl, I know that it's better to use my keywords in URL but the problem is rtl languages in URL converts to sth like %AB12%sjdkah which makes it long.
second question, should I use Persian keywords for my main pages like the ones in navigation? e.g (www.minyatoor.com/طراحی-سایت instead of www.minyatoor.com/web-design ?)
and one last one, my website is already at top 5 serp for my keyword, if I should change my URL's to rtl, does it worth to do that now?
Regards
Hopefully, the community can chime in on that one. I have to admit, I don't have much experience in that area.
Dr Pete, great post!
I really like it because I am a big fan of nice and simple URLs. they make the site user friendly. Sometimes I stumble upon some sites that have URLs really really long, full of parameters with no sense for the user.
Now with this post I hope to change the mind of some others SEOs and IT departments!
thanks again!
nice post
One of my favourite posts on here in a long time.
Technical issues aside you highlight the dangers of fixating on one element of SEO very well.
Very good article there. Slightly related point here: Resumed one of my adwords campaigns after about 9mths of not using it to find my rankings for alot of my top pages down 50 percent. Also noticed my adwords ads were disaproved. So emailed adwords support and was told that my site had too many ads and not enough content. Confirmed that the drop in rankings is from too many ads and thin content from the horses mouth. In the process of emailing back and forth at the adwords support guy. He keeps telling me that no there are still too many ads. So made another attemp and waiting on his reply. My point is that thin content and or too many ads are going to be a problem eventually even if it takes a manual review. Mind you i dont consider some of the pages in question thin but hay.
After a recent changes to reduce URL length it's good to be reminded of both the risks and techniques to use.
Thanks
Darroch
p.s. Some of these techniques do sound rather 'technical' https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/7-technical-seo-wins-for-web-developers/
Much helpful tips for me...on the other hand it is Much risky... everything you metioned about URL structure was much crucial to consider about! I didn't understand your last point "6: Leave the sitemap temporarily" Does that mean,we need to remove the old sitemap but Not adding the new sitemap for a temporary period of time? Or remove the old sitemap and immediately add, the new sitemap!
Please reply.
Thanks!
@Ajay
If you are changing structure of URLs so create new XML sitemap containing that one and submit to webmaster tools.
For example:
First, xyz.com/new-sitemap.xml &
Second, xyz.com/sitemap.xml - This is your old one.
Google will start to pick new URLs from first one. that's for sure... But, may focus on old XML sitemap. You don't need to worry about it. Because, you have already set 301 from old URLs to new URLs. Google will slow down to pick URLs from old one. You can identify it by visual number of webmaster tools.
When you feel that, Google is not picking any single URL from old one so just remove it from website and webmaster tool.
One more thing. You can replace your new XML sitemap name with sitemap.xml and uplaod + re-submit it. Now, you can delete new-sitemap.xml from webmaster tools as well as from website.
@Hiren:
Thanks sir, for the step by step instructions regarding the sitemap issue.
I got the right information from you as expected.! :)
got a new idea
Exactly, yes - keep them both up for a while. You can have multiple XML sitemaps, and they can overlap - it's not a gray/black-hat thing. Ideally, you don't want that overlap forever (it's just messy), but having both sitemaps running can actually speed the re-indexing process along.
Great post. One important thing to consider is, if you're using a CMS, what impact that has and how it behaves if you change the URLs. Some will automatically set up a redirect to the new URL so it's just a case of renaming your existing URL.
There's definitely a trade off, you can try and make a page do too much and put too many keywords in the URL however if you can take the pain of making the change it can definitely be fruitful to put some extra keywords in the URL structure - I've found in the past making a change like this can see the sites rankings drop for around a month.
It's also worth bearing in mind that some URLs are automatically changed by some content management systems without adding 301 redirects and it's almost like starting again - a friend of mine had a problem with this recently.
Great post! very helpful to me.
I was pritty new to SEO when I launched my website which has been live about 5 months. I have recently changed the URL's in one section of the website. Non of these 400 URL's had any inbound links so is there any point in doing 301's for them??
I did notice an alert in webmaster tools but it seems to have gone now.
If they are in google's index then yes. The google bot will recrawl them and get 404 errors otherwise. Unless you had that section noindexed then it would be good to set up 301 redirects.
Good post and thank you for sharing. From my experience people who suffer most from long tail links are the ones who own a web shop or heavy content web sites such as news papers, online magazines etc with daily updates.
While it might be a nightmare to change every single web page from your 100+ products links it might worth starting by individually naming each shop page's title with the product you sell instead of just having "online shop" title to all pages. Less internal competition and definitely a step forward.
@Jenni redirect will indeed solve the problem, but you have to be careful the time that the search engine needs to index your new link with the re-directed page till it replaces the links on the search engine results, a process that do not happen automatically. If I were you I would leave both pages online for at least 1month before removing the old one.
Totaly agree
Honestly this is an awesome and Very good article which is so important to know for every blogger. Of course this techtic of permalink help a blog to get a good position in SERPs. This is se helpful for On page seo guide :)
Thanks dear Pete
ha ha i like how to tame a panda, if how to kill a panda is very good ^^
Great roundup Post Pete, Url Structure is somehow very tricky for every webmaster. I have read many article regarding how to optimize your URL or like to make it SEO-friendly but this is something specific for me and provide me the right direction.
I thought that dynamic urls may be not as good as search engine perspective. I agree the way you provide the solution and URL is vital thing becuase on that basis SE identify your page in a simple way. So i love this post because this is somrthing deep insights information which many people are looking for.
Some excellent advice there though changing a URL will always have some teething problems. We did see our rankings bounce they stabilised once Google was aware of the change which took a couple of months.
Dr Peter,
Thanks for the great post! It really clears things up for all the rumors we hear about URLs.
Even Matt Cutts was saying in one of his videos that the closer to beginning your keywords are the better. So forget all your folders and kiad a side structure in URL.
Great info! Can sometimes seem basic but it's amazing how many sites get it wrong.
I'm helping a website clean up their SEO, and I want to be sure I get it right. Currently, when you go to their homepage, the URL is:
https://www.easyreadsystem.com/index/index.html
But of course when they promote their site or leave a blog comment, they use:
https://www.easyreadsystem.com
Am I right in thinking that they should change their homepage URL to https://www.easyreadsystem.com and do a 301 redirect from https://www.easyreadsystem.com/index/index.html to https://www.easyreadsystem.com to keep value from any links that link to the longer URL?
I feel like remember reading this common problem, which ends up splitting link value between two different URLs. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw "Should I Change My URLs for SEO?" but I don't think you mentioned it in the post.
I think home-pages are an exception to the risk/reward trade-off. An odd, non-canonical home-page URL can cause a lot of problems. Even if Google crawls it without duplication, people will, as you said, link to the root version. Having a layered "index" folder and page seems really risk for no potential gain.
I would 301 redirect it, and you will keep the link value, for the most part. It's just going to make life easier for them going forward. Make sure they also link to the root internally - I see a lot of people 301-redirect but then set their internal links to the old version. It's a mixed signal at best.
I would only do 301 redirects if absolutely necessary. I have seen a case where a site's friendly url was shortened with no other changes to the website. After a couple of weeks the rankings dropped.
Great opening paragraph (ha) and great post. This is one of those things that seems so simple - there are ideal structures for URLs! - until you actually get into it and realize there are a lot of things that can go wrong and detract from your overall SEO goals.
Very informative post and facts are well presented. I've found that making SEO friendly links don't necessarily help boost your search ranking but it certainly doesn't hurt to make it human readable if you are doing up a new site.
I think this is a GREAT post. Thanks Dr. Pete! Also if at all possible, I would recommend doing the URL changes in parts instead of all at once. That way a person can see if those old pages have dropped out of the index or increased in rankings. A complete URL restructure is like putting all eggs in a basket.
I am guessing that the age and possibly the size of the website matter. As well as keyword research. It also seems that if keyword research is done that you can better optimize the words choosen and they would HAVE to eventually rank higher.
A more established site large site would seem to carry more risk it seems in doing it all at once.
I have one question, I am totally confuse should i change my link structure or not, or its the main reason my blog post always have low ranking in search result
I have a blog, using wordpress - I am using both Categories and tags in blog (both are dofollow)
I also have categories and sub categories, my post structure is like this
Categories Link is as follow , most of the times I select 2 categories for 1 post
website.com/category/internet
website.com/category/internet/computer-tips/
my blog post URL is like this
website.com/internet/how-to-use-internet
website.com/internet/computer-tips/how-to-use-internet
I am Using also few tags for post,
in short I get approx 7/8 different URLs for same post
all links have same post same content -- should i continue this or its my mistake I select main category and also sub category and also using tags
I see my analytcs visitors details, I start lossing visitors, in prev month I have approx 600 visitors daily , now i am getting 250/300 avg visitors daily, its looking Panda last update effect me
My quetions are
Looking forward for your feedback and opinions
Long URLs may not effect on organic ranking. If your web page is outstanding on specific subject with long URL so, Google have no hassitation to rank you.
First, I assume that, you are surviving with duplicate pages. If you have duplicate pages so Google will stop to crawl your pages. Second, I can't give you accurate suggestion because, you have not included your real URLs. So, How can I digg in with issue? Ok forget it...
Thanks Hiren for your response,
My Blog URL is https://www.paktelecom.net
i just rechecked that canonical is present in all pages (its by default in wordpress)
My all contents are for users interest what users what to read, providing latest telecom news of my country,
Few points are clear from you answer,
Now what you suggest me about
You can read WordPress SEO tutorial which was compiled by Joost de Valk. This is one of best resource ever for WordPress SEO. I hope.. it will work for you... If you want to drill down more so don't forget to visit this great thread. You can start bombarding of questions over there. Because, you may fight with WordPress experts over there and come to know too many solutions over there. Have a nice day!
i agree that shorter urls works well, but, how the url related to the site matters too. means how your site related or how the url describes your site. like, Affordable SEO Hampshire, their site is so related to their url. or i mean that describes their site... (im confused)
Answered a lot of my questions. Thank you once again for a great post!
Amazing post and very timely for me. We are doing a new build of our 2 year old site and will be switching to a cleaner URL structure for SEO, user experience and most of all to mimic our new site architecture.
Thank you!
Learned something new regarding the "old sitemap" tip. We changed some URLs about a year ago for optimization purposes and while overall the new URLs have been beneficial, it took awhile for Google to drop all the old ones despite our redirects, and Bing still has thousands of the old ones, although it's getting better. I wonder what Bing would be thinking now if we had let it crawl the old sitemap first and get redirected instead of taking it down at the same time as the new one and just assuming that Bing would figure out the redirect if it ever tried to crawl the old URLs already in its index (but no longer coming from our sitemap)
What would you say is the danger of changing the final 'path' of a URL? For instance
https://xyzhomes.com/story.php to
https://xyzhomes.com/home-builder-story.php with all else being equal?
There is no structure change, but my inclination is that it would help the page SEO and with a 301 would have no adverse effect?
So, purely from a risk standpoint, it's important to note that every URL change is going to require the same procedure and all sitewide URL changes carry risk. Here, the risk of the new URL being worse or hurting your ranking (purely from a keyword standpoint) is very low. The risk of changing URLs, though, and processing those 301-redirects, is the same regardless of how small the change is. Even "/story-2.php" would be a completely different URL in Google's eyes.
I know this thread is old and probably forgotten but I have a question that drives me mad. I have urls WITHOUT important keywords and want to change them. It's a jewellery store and I have urls of a product without any indication what product it is.
For example, I have australian opal with url www.example.com/crystal-opal-drop.html whereas the phrase it should be optimized for is "australian opal". I want to change it into
www.example.com/australian-opal-crystal-drop.html
or
www.example.com/australian-opal-drop.html
Would you do this or just crystal drop it?
Thanks
J
It's pretty situational, but personally, I don't think the work and potential risk of URL changes is worth what's probably a very incremental gain for having that term in the URL. If you're going from a bad URL structure to good, and especially if the bad has potential to cause serious problems (i.e. tons of parameters in the URL), then it's one thing. When you're going pretty good to good, I think your time and effort are better spent elsewhere in most cases.
There is potential, too, to over-optimize URLs, either by really keyword-stuffing them or changing them too often. It's hard to prove how Google handles that, but I've seen situations around both that make me nervous. I don't think your example is spammy at all, but if you up and change 5,000 product URLs, the algorithm does reprocess all of that, so there's always some small risk. Add the risk of just a major redirect implementation, and I tend to think the risks outweigh the rewards.
When is a wordpress site it sso easy to change the links...... normally on other site i tend to leave the links unchanged....
A+ article... Short and straight to the point.
Great post, Dr. It highlights the need to get the URL structure right in the beginning.
Great, informative article Dr Pete. Thank you.What are your thoughts on the speed and scope of a url change programme? Would you go ‘all in’ and change everything as quickly as possible or would you drip feed changes in order to a) observe effectiveness and to b) avoid going dark for three months?I’m currently changing urls on a large classifieds site so your post could not be more timely. Our strategy is to change urls category by category rather than site wide, a process that is likely to take several months. I am worried G will think we are tweaking too much over too long a period.
Pete mentioned above to not make major changes over an extending period of time so I am thinking he ment to get it done all at once.
Pete mentioned above to not make major changes over an extending period of time so I am thinking he ment to get it done all at once or as quickly as possible.
Very good point
Hi,
Really nice ...we mut keep the url structure in specific way , so that the bots can crawl the url for they have best match found as defined in the Algorithms.
Wow great article! Thanx
Great Post and seriously this is really actionable as with most of the Joomla and ZenCart website required URL restructuring all the time when they come across SEO.
There are few things that should be in the bold as these are the most common problems that I have seen people when it comes to URL restructuring.
URL Rewriting for example ‘www.example.com/category/products.php’ if rewritten something like this ‘www.example.com/product-name.php’ this is re-written domain, forget the debate which is best for search engines but this does not means that your 3 level deep URL has changes to level 1… Re writing of URL is not going to change the depth level of the website.
The other that that was new to me (I thought I am good at it but…) is to keep the old sitemap up temporarily, I never did that as I though there is no need of it but, Dr. Pete truly explain the logic behind it!
The most important thing for search engine as well as for visitor while going through with URL changes, make sure all your internal links are changed and no hyperlink is pointing to 404 cuz this is not going to give a bad signal to Google but this create a bed user experience as well…
Great read over all…
I used to have Joomlart 1.5 and faced this problem many times. I updated my temlate recently to Joomlart 1.7 and the problem is now solved without even having to do anything or restructure any link.
sounds good but most of the people i know had a hard time with Joomla as it somehow autometically create duplicate URLs and stuff that i really hate the most... (not really a Joomla fan!)