Keyword in URL - SEO impact

[vtmoz]

Hi,

We don't have most important keyword of our industry in our domain or sub-domain. How important it is to have keyword in website URL? Most of our competitors pages with "keyword" urls been listing in SERP. What is back-links role in this scenarion? And which URL have more advantage? keyword in sub-domain or page with keyword. Like for "seo" keyword.....  seo.example.com or example.com/seo

[GastonRiera]

Hi there.

I've conducted some experiments on having the keyword in several places: Exact match domain, subdomain, subdirectory and in the slug.
My conclusions are:

• Having it in a subdomain doen't help at all.
• Having it in a exact match domain (e.g. keyword.com) helps very little and creates a problem when the business tries to expand to more search terms.
• Having it in a subdirectory (e.g. domain.com/my-keyword/some-page) doesnt help much, unless you're trying to rank the page that comes at the subdirectory. This latter makes it a single page or just a slug
• Having it in the slug (e.g. domain.com/single-page-keyword) helps, makes the difference.

My opinion, when it comes to on-page optimization and keyword optimization, it's mandatory to place the main (or some variation of it) in the final URL.
In all my expriments, always there was a correct optimization (on page and for that kw). And were focused for similar kw with similar search difficulties.

---- UPDATE ---
Here some information and resources:

15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs - Moz blog
URL - Moz's learn On-Page SEO: Anatomy of a Perfectly Optimized Page (2016 Update) - Backlinko

---- UPDATE ---

Hope ir helps.
GR.

[vtmoz]

Thanks for the suggestions GR. That gives us an idea to proceed on.

We are also planning to move all the links from one subdirectory to another subdirectory. But we will be redirecting them to related pages.

For example,         website.com/folder1/seo-changes to website.com/folder2/seo-changes

Only sub directory gonna change. But we have many links pointing to sub directory we are directing. Do the same link juice passes to these links redirected to another sub directory?

[GastonRiera]

You're welcome, we are here to help.

Theoretically, there is no linkjuice loss with redirects.
Take a look in this article about the last news and update on Google about 3xx redirects.:
301 Redirects Rules Change: What You Need to Know for SEO

Hope I've helped.
GR.

[vtmoz]

Thanks GR.

I have gone through the Moz article on 301 redirects. They say that every redirect comes with certain amount of SEO risk. What exactly it might be?

And everybody say that we must redirect to relevant page. I can understand that 2 pages content must be relevant, but what's the importance of URL here? Do we need a match in URL keywords too? Because, if a non-existing link is redirected to existing page, what will be the metrics to pass link juice or any risk as there will be no content in one of these pages and how bots check? Like for below example:

website.com/folder/page1/content/ is a non-existing page and if it's redirected to website.com or website.com/folder2/page14.

Thanks,

Satish

[GastonRiera]

Yeap, it should be redirected to relevant pages. Not to the homepage nor less relevant pages, because it's treated as a soft 404 error.
Here a great article:
Proof That 301 Redirects To Less-Relevant Pages Are Seen As Soft 404s To Google [Case Study] Google May Treat Expired Products Page Redirects As Soft 404s And, what google considers as Soft 404 errors

Hope it helps.
GR.

[justinkiser]

GR,

Appreciate the advice. We are working with a customer that offers two very different services (janitorial services and pest control). We have 2 options for organizing their site.

Option A: 1 website under the main company name with dual focus

Option B: 2 seperate site 1 for each service giving main service the company domain name and the secondary service the company domain name - janitorial.com

Would enjoy to hear your thoughts on this!

Thanks,

JK

[GastonRiera]

Hi JK,

Thanks for the reply.

First of all, this is an old article, and many (if not all) of the information given has changed in Google search algorithms.

In the case you are describing, in nowadays SEO (2019), I'd suggest you not to focus on having any keyword weight in the domain/subdomain.
Keep both services in the same domain, under the same company name. Google will understand that its the same company offering two services. Of course, you should have different pages for both services.
Probably would be of help, creating really good content to give context and use internal linking to tell Google which are your main pages and targeted search terms.

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
Gaston