URL structure

[philiporchard]

On our sites, our sub cat pages follow this structure:

www.cardiff.co.uk/estate-agents/

Cardiff covers a big area, so we are going to break it down into smaller areas, e.g. Cathays, Roath, Splott etc

Should we go for option 1 or option 2?

Option 1
www.cardiff.co.uk/estate-agents/cathays/

Option 2
www.Cardiff.co.uk/cathays-estate-agents/

Thanks

 

[Jamie101]

Personally I'd go for option 1. I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure option 1 would be better for SEO.

 

[Systreg]

No expert on SEO stuff, but I prefer the structured way of option 1

 

[Murray]

The truth is for what you're talking about URLs don't make any real difference for SEO. I personally like this version just visually. /estate-agents/cathays

If you have to change things though from what they are currently I wouldn't bother.

If you do though make sure you 301 the old urls to the new ones and change all the internal linking.

 

[murph]

Yep, SEO wise it shouldn't make any difference

 

[zehrila]

What would be cardiff.co.uk/estate-agents/ ?

Use it like this

cardiff.co.uk/agents/ <- Primary category with title like Estate Agents in Cardiff
cardiff.co.uk/agents/cathays/ <- Sub category with title like Estate Agents in Cathays, Cardiff

Personally i would go for agents instead of estate-agents, estate-agents is exact match and i have been trying to keep optimization as low as possible.

 

[Murray]

Personally i would go for agents instead of estate-agents, estate-agents is exact match and i have been trying to keep optimization as low as possible.

This is how myths get started..

Please show any evidence you have that having a keyword in your URL structures will get you penalised?.

I will save you some time, there is none and it doesn't.

 

[zehrila]

This is how myths get started..

Please show any evidence you have that having a keyword in your URL structures will get you penalised?.

I will save you some time, there is none and it doesn't.

I don't know what your credentials are, but that is how i would prefer my site to be like. As far as example is concerned, look in my signature. BTW, there are spam analysis patents which check on multiple verticals and over optimization is one of them.

However, a site can still be successful using the exact match keywords. Lastly, i have no clue why you made up on your own when i no where said that using keyword in url will get you penalty?

 

[Edwin]

I'd say it depends how much you want to or are able to customise the "estate agents" category top page.

Option 1 gives you a distinct "top page" covering the whole concept of Cardiff Estate Agents, which may be handy if you want to put together quite a distinctive category page, and also if you want to sell "premium" ad space i.e. ad space across the whole city.
www.cardiff.co.uk/estate-agents/cathays/

Option 2 on the other hand does away with a top level category page entirely.
www.Cardiff.co.uk/cathays-estate-agents/

In other words, do you want to have custom category pages ("estate agents", "plumbers", "hotels", "taxi services" etc.) or are you content with hooking the front page straight through to area-and-category-specific pages?

Only you can answer the above, but it's that answer that will shape your choice of URL structure.

 

[philiporchard]

Thanks for all your responses.

Yes, we already have a top cat page for Cardiff Estate Agents.

www.cardiff.co.uk/estate-agents/

The area specific page, will almost be a filtered version, showing estate agents within a certain area of the city.

 

[ryan_uk]

I don't know what your credentials are, but that is how i would prefer my site to be like. As far as example is concerned, look in my signature. BTW, there are spam analysis patents which check on multiple verticals and over optimization is one of them.

Over optimisation wouldn't be domain.co.uk/estate-agents/, but instead an easily understandable URL for humans. (Just /agents could related to any kind of agent.) Over-optimisation is throwing keywords in every possible place, for example (not just the URL, but the page in general).

You've mentioned the term "exact match". Are you possibly getting confused with the EMD update? That was about domains (hence the D), specifically poor quality ones (an often misunderstood update, too).

With regards to this site, the "over-optimisation"* part isn't visible (to us humans). Meta keywords, it's something that Bing** looks at a spam indicator and Google ignores, so best not to use them at all.

* Admittedly, I just had a quick look and not a detailed analysis.
**Ref: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pump-up-the-bing-whiteboard-friday -- Duane Forrestor is Bing's equivalent of Matt Cutts.

 

[zehrila]

Over optimisation wouldn't be domain.co.uk/estate-agents/, but instead an easily understandable URL for humans. (Just /agents could related to any kind of agent.) Over-optimisation is throwing keywords in every possible place, for example (not just the URL, but the page in general).

You've mentioned the term "exact match". Are you possibly getting confused with the EMD update? That was about domains (hence the D), specifically poor quality ones (an often misunderstood update, too).

With regards to this site, the "over-optimisation"* part isn't visible (to us humans). Meta keywords, it's something that Bing** looks at a spam indicator and Google ignores, so best not to use them at all.

* Admittedly, I just had a quick look and not a detailed analysis.
**Ref: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pump-up-the-bing-whiteboard-friday -- Duane Forrestor is Bing's equivalent of Matt Cutts.

I never said /estate-agents/ would be an over optimization, but that having it like /agents/ would be least optimized and no, my judgement is not based on EMD update, but from personal experiences since 2008.

You are going to have Estate Agents in Title/H1/URL/Description/Body & Back Link Anchors. These are all important areas and to stay under the radar, you need to be very careful with each element. Although /estate-agents/ is good to go, i would like to think having /agents/ can further safeguard you from future algo tweaks.

 

[ryan_uk]

I never said /estate-agents/ would be an over optimization, but that having it like /agents/ would be least optimized and no, my judgement is not based on EMD update, but from personal experiences since 2008.

You are going to have Estate Agents in Title/H1/URL/Description/Body & Back Link Anchors. These are all important areas and to stay under the radar, you need to be very careful with each element. Although /estate-agents/ is good to go, i would like to think having /agents/ can further safeguard you from future algo tweaks.

That's just really taking it to extremes in an unhealthy way. I'm don't want to get into a ****-swinging contest, but this stuff you're coming out with is mythical and tinfoil hat SEO.

#1: You don't need to "stay under the radar" if you're doing nothing wrong. Wrong is spamming, keyword stuffing, cloaking and similar stuff like that.
#2: There's zero wrong with having the same text in your URL, description, body, title and even anchors (as backlinks are usually given by someone else, the anchor text is up to them and could be anything). In fact, it's normal, and it's definitely not over-optimisation. Over optimisation would be something like "Cardiff Estate Agents | Estate Agents | Best Estate Agents In Cardiff" as a title or sentences such as "Cardiff estate agents real estate houses flats for sale estate agents realtors realty new developments can be found here".

What Phil is doing is safe and I wish him the best of luck with it.

 

[zehrila]

Over optimisation wouldn't be domain.co.uk/estate-agents/, but instead an easily understandable URL for humans.

Agreed, and i no where said using /estate-agents/ is bad or overly optimized!

Over-optimisation is throwing keywords in every possible place, for example (not just the URL, but the page in general).

There's zero wrong with having the same text in your URL, description, body, title and even anchors

First, you said over optimization would be using same kewyords in every element of page and in your second comment you are suggesting there is zero wrong with using keywords text in every element of page, i personally don't want to go into that debate, i can understand what you are trying to convey so lets stop there, we both understand what over optimization is.

Secondly, i have no idea what so ever as to why you are talking about over optimization and making it look like i proposed that /estate-agents/ is overly optimized when i repeatedly said the url is good to go!

That's just really taking it to extremes in an unhealthy way. I'm don't want to get into a ****-swinging contest, but this stuff you're coming out with is mythical and tinfoil hat SEO.

#1: You don't need to "stay under the radar" if you're doing nothing wrong. Wrong is spamming, keyword stuffing, cloaking and similar stuff like that.

In some cases you need to stay under the radar, if you believe having domain.com/grand-theft-auto-5-release-date/ as a url, Grand Theft Auto 5 Release Date your title/h1/body/description and similar anchors is perfectly fine, (which actually is) then all i would say is you have a lot to test and a lot to learn before you can actually grasp what i meant in my earlier post.

What Phil is doing is safe and I wish him the best of luck with it.

His script is beautiful, cardiff.co.uk/estate-agents/ is fine, while i wish him all the success, i am not in a position to say what i see on the page is perfectly safe, i can see areas where some improvements should be made, but talking about them shall steer the discussion into something else. Topic is about url structure, so lets stick to that.

 

[philiporchard]

Thanks for thoughtful posts.

Our URLs have gone through many updates, and now we've found a structure that works well, we don't want to mess it up!

 

[zehrila]

Thanks for thoughtful posts.

Our URLs have gone through many updates, and now we've found a structure that works well, we don't want to mess it up!

Your url structure is good, one suggestion though use strtolower to lowercase all your urls and using htaccess make the mixed case to 301 redirect to lowercase.

 

[philiporchard]

Your url structure is good, one suggestion though use strtolower to lowercase all your urls and using htaccess make the mixed case to 301 redirect to lowercase.

Thanks - good point.