Correct URL Structure Question

[CFSSEO]

Dear Moz Community,

I have a quick question regarding my internal link structure.

Which route would be the best way to design my website?

Option A)
MYSITE.com/category/make/model/state/city

Option B)
MYSITE.com/category-make-model-state-city.aspx

I've been reading a lot of articles regarding link structure by Matt Cutts (or at least referencing him), but I'm not sure what the best practice is for today.  Any information or references would be great.

Thank you very much!

[crackingmedia]

Hi,

I would go with option B as option A implies sub-folders. Rand Fishkin suggests the same in this blog post: 11 Best Practices for URLs which was written 7 years ago (that long?!), but I think this principle still holds true.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[CFSSEO]

Thank very much, Mr. Lunn.

I read on an SEO "checklist" that it is best to avoid deep link structures.  If possible, try not to go past two levels

i.e.

Option A)
MYSITE.com/level-one/level-two/level-three/level-four/level-five

Option B)
MYSITE.com/level-one/level-two.aspx

Does that still hold true today?  Anyone have any good reference material slightly more recent?

Thank you very much!

[randfish]

Hi Peter - generally speaking, I'd still recommend minimizing unnecessary subfolders, but in this case, I'd lean a little more toward A than B for usability, readability, and crawling purposes. My guess is that CFSSEO's got a lot of URLs in various forms of those subfolders, not just the example shown.

CFSSEO - If possible, I'd choose to go with something like mysite.com/category/make-model/city-state/xyz.html (but it really depends on the specifics of what's in the folders and how they describe the pages).

The reason is that you want to have a logical URL structure that makes sense to crawlers (who will make guesses about locations) as well as highly readable to searchers/users (who often scan the URL in the search results). In those cases, slashes are far more common and readable than hyphens.

[randfish]

I wouldn't say that two levels is the max - but in general you should avoid having unnecessary/non-useful folders of depth, and probably no more than 5+ levels of folder depth if possible. Crawlers have gotten much more sophisticated, but it still tends to be the case that more folders don't add a lot of value, so unless there's a good reason (and there may be a reason for some in CFS' case as I noted above), I'd avoid them.

[crackingmedia]

Hi Rand

Many thanks for taking the time to check by on this one. I appreciate you giving your valuable input.

Peter