What is the most optimal URL structure

[TheOceanAgency]

A colleague and I are discussing the most optimal URL structure for both search engines and users. Our first disagreement comes in terms of files.

So for instance if I have a small site, www.abc.com, with a service landing page and 3 specific services, which structure is preferred?

• www.abc.com/services/service1
• www.abc.com/service1

The second issue is in terms of breaking up words in the URL. Should you use hyphens or not? Using the first example, which is preferred?

• www.abc.com/services/home-remodeling
• www.abc.com/services/homeremodeling.

I'm also looking for articles/case studies that support either side.  Thank you in advance for your help!

[TommySwanson52]

I'd suggest keeping the page as close to the root domain as possible. Don't put directories in-between as you did in the following example: www.abc.com/services/service1

Also, utilize hyphens to separate the words. I don't think Google is sophisticated enough to breakup a string into words without hyphens (could be wrong).

Lastly, if you're planning on trying to get into Google News, one of the requirements is to have a 3+ digit string in your URL. So something along the lines of www.abc.com/home-remodeling-123

Hope that helps!

[THB]

There are quite a few factors at play here.

1. I've always preferred, as a developer, to have end-pages split up into categories and sub-categories for ease of development.  However, it also let's the user know where they are within the site simply by looking at the URL.

There really is no right or wrong.  You just have to do what makes sense for the site.  If we're talking a micro-site here, with only a handful of pages, then you don't need to create categories and sub-categories.  Just make a straight up URL, ie. /vacuum-services.html instead of doing /services/vacuums/

Remember to try and keep your preferred keywords to the foremost left of the URL to ensure some significance is placed on them.  Not imperative, but if you can, I'd suggest it.

2. Always use hyphens to break up a word.  Underscores are seen as a form of concatenation by search engines, whereas hyphens are seen as separators.  Using neither is not recommended as it's not legible to the end-user and ultimately just forms one large word comprised of several keywords.  No good.

[KeriMorgret]

Don't forget to consider how your URL structure can help with effective Google Analytics tracking. Lunametrics has a good post on designing a GA-friendly site structure at http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/09/22/designing-google-analytics-friendly-site/

[THB]

"I don't think Google is sophisticated enough to breakup a string into words without hyphens"

I wonder though... they might very well use the same algo that they use when you misspell something in the search box on google.com

Try typing in two conjoined words and it manages to separate them asking, "Did you mean..."

You brought up an interesting point.