URL for location pages

[Ferguson]

Hello all

We would like to create clean, easy URLs for our large list of Location pages.

If there are a few URLs for each of the pages, am I right when I'm saying we would like this to be the canonical?

Right now we would like the URL to be: For example
Domain.com/locations/Columbus

I have found some instances where there might be 2,3 or more locations in the same city,zip.

My conclusion for these would be: adding their Branch id's on to the URL
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/0304

Is this an okay approach?

We are unsure if the URL should have city,State,zip for SEO purposes?
The pages will have all of this info in it's content
BUT what would be best for SEO and ranking for a given location?

Thank you for any info!

[legalseo]

Ferguson-

Hard to answer definitively without knowing your content/target. Numbers in your URL don't mean anything to SEs unless it's a keyword (like a ZIP, area code or model) - what does 0304 tell me or Google? You mention the possibility of multiple pages for a location, so if I assume the nature of the content for these pages is different I'd say you'd want to optimize the URLs to bolster your on page SEO. Let's say you have a site for dentists and the like, then your URLs might be:
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/orthodontists
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/dentists
Domain.com/locations/Columbus/OH/oral-surgeons

If the differences are purely location within a ZIP code for nearly identical stores (think Starbucks) then I'd let Google Places do the SEO work for you.

[MiriamEllis]

Hello Ferguson!

I agree with Chas on this that it's a little harder to answer without knowing the exact content. Most typically, I write URLs for city landing pages something like this:

whatever.com/city-state-service

For example, let's say the business is a mobile notary public in Berkeley, California. The URL might look like:

joenotary.com/berkeley-ca-mobile-notary

This would be for a business, and the landing pages might be for the different cities in which the business serves. Your situation is a little more complex with a single business with multiple locations in the same city and zip. Is your site a directory website? Or are you simply dealing with a single franchise's website? Perhaps you can give us a little more information.

At any rate, it sounds to me as if the only distinct items about the businesses would be their street addresses. How long are they? Would using them make them hugely long? What I'm describing would be something like this:

directory.com/joe-notary-123-centre-st

directory.com/joe-notary-39-brown-ave

a longer version would be:

directory.com/joe-notary-123-centre-st-boston-ma

It's not horribly long...but some businesses have really long street addresses with suite numbers and the like, so you'll have to judge whether an approach like this would start to look spammy.

Would this work for you? Has your question been answered? If not, please feel free to provide further details.

Miriam

[Ferguson]

Thank you both

Yes, I found after going the street name approach we were finding long addresses, so it was looking spammy like you said.

Here is an example of our current Location Page - We are doing a huge project right now to redo the layout completely
http://www.ferguson.com/BranchPage/locations-finder/branch_landing_page.jsp?R=298&branch=0511

as you can see the URL is long and this is why we want to make it user friendly and easier, so the Locations can easily give them out to their customers.

An approach I am taking right now is
Ferguson.com/locations/Goshen/NY/0304      0304=the branch ID

This reason is because I am finding a few branch IDs have the same address, so the only difference they have is the Branch ID

Does this look clean?  It's not the approach we want to take.  I would like to differentiate them with their service, but I am not provided at this moment with this info.  There are over 1500 locations, but we are in the process of obtaining this info.

Somewhat off topic - Google Places, would one account allow for us to insert all of these locations? We should utilize Google Places Correct? My question is what is the approach for that?

Thank you all for your input - it is great help!

Nick

[legalseo]

F-

Google Places permits an upload of multiple business locations @ https://www.google.com/local/add/g?hl=en-US&gl=US#uploadfeed
you may want to review this help page:
Common issues that delay the bulk verification process:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=173669
This caveat may hinder a bulk upload:
Multiple listings at the same physical location are not permitted within one feed. Please consolidate multiple services or businesses under one title.

As for your example URL from an SEO perspective, underscores between words are a programming legacy from days when spaces could be misinterpreted between Unix and Windows servers and are not conducive to good SEO. With an underscore Google joins the two words and sees them that way so landing_page is seen as landingpage whereas landing-page is seen as landing page. See this Matt Cutts video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AQcSFsQyct8

Is there any other way to differentiate locations (branch ID) that convey more meaningful information (from an SEO perspective) and that would permit you to utilize Google Places? A suite number, even if it's superfluous?
C

[Ferguson]

I feel once I obtain more information like type of service for the locations - this would be much better than the branch ID

For example we have:
Showrooms
HVAC Locations
Geosynthetic Locations

These would be great to use like the dentist examples from above.

Thank you for the videos and info on Google Places.  Great stuff for us to review!

Nick

[MiriamEllis]

Good advice again from Chas!

I think, given your situation, that the URLs you are using with the branch numbers are probably about as good as you can manage. Yes, it would be stronger for SEO if they could more keywords in them instead of just a branch number, but on a project this large, compromises sometimes have to be made.

One other item to mention - you have listed 'geosynthetic' locations. This is not a term I'm familiar with, but just in case you are talking about virtual offices, it's important to know that Google does not accept these. No P.O. boxes, no virtual offices. Each location you list in Places must have a unique local area code phone number and unique dedicated physical street address.

Hope this helps, and best of luck with the bulk upload!

Miriam