2 Question about URL structure

[seomasterbrasil]

Hello guys

1 - I have a question about the best structure for URLs from the point of view of SEO:

Is it OK to use the URL as

mywebsite.com.br/long-tail-article

Or is better this

mywebsite.com.br/category/long-tail-article

2 - When part of my keyword is already in my "category", for example:

mywebsite.com.br/digital-marketing/digital-marketing-is-good

I leave it as it is, or in the following way:

mywebsite.com.br/digital-marketing-is-good

NOTE: Do not take into account that this URL would be different from other URLs in this category

[MichaelC-15022]

I'd be inclined to go shorter.  I don't believe you're going to see any additional ranking benefits from having the keyword in the URL twice (might be different if the keyword was in the domain AND the URL, but even then...).

I'd be a little concerned that having the keyword in there twice might look spammy to Google, too.

[SEOAndy]

this depends on the size and nature of your site. For instance if you've lots of posts about a topic within your site (say "social media" or "email marketing") it is best to have them as a category and your post title to follow. Otherwise you could have issues in that you end up needing to put "email-marketing" in each post url ... which isn't pretty to do manually

[HeatherBakerTopLine]

I think you should structure your URL from the point of view of the reader rather than Google - that way you future proof yourself against any Google updates.

[SEOAndy]

thats not always the case, consider a user may remember a number easier than a url which is descriptive (eg .com/12345 vs .com/this-is-a-blog-post-title-and-url ) however the numbers aren't descriptive and so hold no real seo value

• this said regardless of what option is choosen Google could always decide to prefer another mechanism in ranking for urls - or totally ignore them

[seomasterbrasil]

This is exactly my fear, be regarded as SPAM.

[seomasterbrasil]

It would not be a problem because I use Wordpress

[SEOAndy]

not really my point - my point is categorisation on large sites is helpful to search engines and users. WP does this very well and I utilise it a whole bunch on my sites that use WP

[EGOL]

Yep... I agree... we get thousands of visitors every day through category pages.

[karlheinz.toni]

'a user may remember a number easier than a url which is descriptive' - true. Tho, if you look at it from a search engine angle, CTR is a crucial factor - and even if the title of a page itself is a good discriminator, many people still do look at URLs.

Imagine a page title like 'We give away gold for free' and a URL path saying 'this-is-just-a-scam.html' . While this is an extreme example the analogy should hold up. And while 12345 probably does not mean anything negative to anyone (or only to very, very, very few people) it is not really meaningful.

Thus I don't agree with your premise and I'm with Heather when she's saying that your user should be the prime focus and her implication that Google's interest is in the user and will do what it takes to make them happy - and that's not just for commercial reasons.

I however completely am with you on your 'this depends on the size and nature of your site' comment!

General rule:

• keyword duplication is BAD: mywebsite.com.br/digital-marketing/digital-marketing-is-good would very likely be considered as SPAM
• short title are preferred (as per early 2012 and I've not heard anything else about that since then) - as Michael said before
• targeted landing pages are GOOD. I'd say that if you plan to have the category in the URL just for the URL's purpose - leave it be. But if you plan on making e.g. - digital-marketing/index.html a targeted landing page with additional content (i.e. not just a plain listing of the articles) the you can gain real value
• try to make all pages reachable from the homepage within 4 clicks or less. Category offer you a perfect way to do this - on top of providing good landing pages

What I'd do:

1.) Check if you and/or your team has got the time to provide and maintain bespoke content for category pages, e.g. digital-marketing. If not, then I'd tend not to bother with changing the URLs
2.) If you decide you have the time - GO FOR IT. Check how many duplications you'd really have for each of your designated categories. Might be best to manually change the title and/or have a script check your database for such duplications.

Cheers,
Charly