Placement of key words in URL

[Gavin.Atkinson]

I notice that the MOZ Page Grader considers "/keyword1/keyword2-keyword3" in a URL string to be less effective than "/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3". Is this correct from Google's perspective?

If I am trying to maximise my SEO for the page title "Business building tips", for example, does Google think my URL is more relevant if it's in the form:

1. www.website.com/business-building-tips
2. www.website.com/business/building-tips or
3. www.website.com/business/business-building-tips

My instinct tells me 3 is more powerful, but logic tells me if I have a whole section devoted to "business" and one of those pages is "business building tips" then 2 should work just as well, possibly better?

[Alick300]

Hi Tony,

First of all keyword in URL doesn't helps in ranking boost so don't worry about that . I would suggest you to go with first option.

Thanks

[Gavin.Atkinson]

What prompted my question is that sometimes the MOZ page grader discounts our URL for not having keywords in it even though the keywords are one step back in the path (as in example 2 above).

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey

I believe Matt Cutts once said that keywords in a URL help a "little bit" (1). That was like back in 2009 though so whether that is still a direct factor in the algorithm who knows. If so it would only be a 1% thing.

Looking at your three options I would be staggered if there was any ranking difference between the three of them. Personally I like #1 best if you have no specific business section on the site and #2 if you do have a business section with other articles on the site. #3 looks a bit spammy and over long (for SEO's sake only).

Ultimately though this is the wrong way to look at things - you need to look at things the way Google wants us to look at things and do what is best for your user. You want a URL that clearly indicates what the page is about and that would look good pasted into a blog post or forum or some such. You want a URL that looks the part in

You then want to make sure that everything else is helping clearly illustrate what this page is about:

• URL (our entry point)
• Page Title
• Internal Navigation / Anchors
• Breadcrumb if used
• H1 tags
• Page content
• Domain level keyword content
• External links if relevant / possible / quality etc

This is just such a tiny thing overall that I really would not sweat it - do what is right for your users and what makes most sense and the SEO aspects will take care of themselves.

Hope that helps
Marcus

References

1. http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-keywords-in-the-url-16976

[webtheoria.com]

Totally agree witb Marcus, since I also believe that is still a ranking factor, maybe even higher than the 1% mentioned above, especially for low ranking keywords!

The 1st structure would be my way of doing things and this is how I teach other to do, rather than using subfolders.

But is also good to remember the user (who may prefer shorter URL since a study showed he may feel safer). I like in this cases to use the phrase Matt Cutts said few years back: "More is not better any more"

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Marcus has given you some good pointers there and while there does appear to be a small benefit in putting your keywords into a URL, it isn't something I would change just to do so.

In terms of how should a URL look, it depends on what makes the most sense for the products / pages. If you have a shop, then you might want to break it down to categories and products - if not, then a flat structure will probably work better.

Keep is straightforward, informative but never stuff it for the sake of trying. Shorter URL's are better where you can, but don't aim for a short one if it misses the point.

-Andy

[netzkern_AG]

I would chose variant 2. Less for an omnious Ranking Boost and more for segmentation of the site. With a subdirectory like /business/ you can analyse the behaviour in that content/business section much better than if you just put everything in a "no-subdirectory url".

No subdirectories are, imo, only useful if you have no clear sections or topics - or a single one defined by the domain.

As Marcus Miller mentioned, this has the added benefit of making sense in a vacuum. At least in my opinion.

Nico

[MattRoney]

URL best practices aside, know that the On-Page Grader only recognizes a tracked keyword when it appears exactly as it was entered into your Moz campaign. It's not actually any sort of commentary on what Google considers more effective from a URL structure standpoint.

Personally, I would also choose variant 2.

[Gavin.Atkinson]

Maybe the real question is why On-Page Grader is so limited in its ability to assess URLs, page titles, etc. I don't believe the tool behaves at all like Google in its assessment of content, so I wonder about using it at all. What do others use?