URL Optimisation Dilemma

[RG_SEO]

First of all, I fully appreciate that I may be over analysing this, so feel free to highlight if you think I’m going overboard on this one.

I’m currently trying to optimise the URLs for a group of new pages that we have recently launched. I would usually err on the side of leaving the urls as they are so that any incoming links are not diluted through the 301 re-direct. In this case, however, there are very few links to these pages, so I don’t think that changing URLs will harm them.

My main question is between short URLs vs. long URLs (I have already read Dr. Pete’s post on this). Note: the URLs I have listed below are not the actual URLs, but very similar examples that I have created.

The URLs currently exist in a similar format to the examples below:

http://www.company.com/products/dlm/hire-ca

My first response was that we could put a few descriptive keywords in the url, with something like the following:

http://www.company/products/debt-lifecycle-management/hire-collection-agents - I’m worried though that the URL will get too long for any pages sitting under this.

As a compromise, I am considering the following:

http://www.company/products/dlm/hire-collection-agents

My feeling is that the second approach will give the best balance between having the keywords for the products and trying to ensure good user experience. My only concern is whether the /dlm/ category page would suffer slightly, but this would have ‘debt-lifecycle-management’ in the title tag.

Does this sound like a good approach to people? Or do you think I’m being a little obsessive about this? Any help would be appreciated

[Sheena_Schleicher]

I'd say you're thinking about this in a smart way. First off, the existing URL structure isn't bad.  I would consider this a low priority update, unless (or until) all other possible site issues are taken care of.

You're being smart about trying to find a balance of having descriptive yet not too long of a URL structure. What I can say is that the 'better way' depends on what words might already be in the domain, as I try to not be redundant (when possible) so it doesn't appear spammy/kw stuffed.

I hope this helps!

[RG_SEO]

Thanks for your response Sheena, it's great to hear that I'm on the right track with this!

I was wondering if you could further explain the following part of your answer:

"What I can say is that the 'better way' depends on what words might already be in the domain, as I try to not be redundant (when possible) so it doesn't appear spammy/kw stuffed."

Are you suggesting that you'd tend towards not including a keyword if it appears elsewhere on the site and so search engines have enough context? Also, what do you mean by 'redundant'?

[Sheena_Schleicher]

Sure! What I mean is if (for example) your domain is debtlifestylemanagement.com, then having the dlm folder spelled out in the URL (i.e. debtlifestylemanagement.com/products/debt-lifecycle-management/hire-collection-agents) would be redundant & appear spammy. The same could happen if your domain had 'collection agents' in it.

I'm suggesting that I would "tend towards not including a keyword in the URI if it alreadyappears in the domain," especially if including it would only be for SEO purposes.

[RG_SEO]

Makes sense - I understand now. Thanks for the clarification