Restructuring URLS - unsure if this falls on the spammy side of paths.

[snowflake74]

Hi all,

I'm restructuring a site that has been built with no real structure. It's moving over to HTTPS and having a full new development so it's a good time to tackle it all together.

It's a snowboard site and at the moment the courses, camps ect are all just as pages like:

examplesnowboarding.com/off-piste-backcountry/

I'm wanting to tighten the structure so it gives more meaning to the pages and so I can style them selectively and make it easier for the client to manage but I'm worried repeating the word snowboard too often will look spammy.

I'm wanting to do the following:

URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-courses/splitboard-backcountry-intro/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-camps/technical-performance/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-camps/girls-only/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-lessons/private/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/snowboard-lessons/group/

The urls are clean and humanly descriptive but it does mean that the "snowboard" keyword is used a lot!

The other 2 options I thought of were like so (including snowboard in the page name not path)

URL - examplesnowboarding.com/courses/snowboard-splitboard-backcountry-intro/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/snowboard-technical-performance/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/snowboard-girls-only/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/private-snowboard/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/group-snowboard/

or simply removing "snowboard" as "snowboarding" is already in the main url

URL - examplesnowboarding.com/courses/splitboard-backcountry-intro/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/technical-performance/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/girls-only/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/private/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/group/

Any thoughts appreciated!

[snowflake74]

I should mentioned I've read up on keyword stemming so my gut feeling is that because "snowboarding" is in the domain name that I shouldn't have to repeat "snowboard" further down the url as it should be matched from the top level keyword "snowboarding"?

[donsilvernail]

Hi Snowflake74,

If your website is about snowboarding then there are going to be multiple URLs that have the word snowboard in them outside the domain name. Your first example is perfectly acceptable. You should be designing your url structure for the best user experience not to manipulate Google or any other search engine. Do keywords in urls help. Yes they certainly do but are not as big of a ranking factor as your on page content.

I would stay away from blatantly stuffing your pages with the work Snowboard or versions there of. This is where spammy keyword selection can kill you. Not so much on the URLs. You do however, want to make sure your urls are short. The only problem I can see with your new structures is that the urls have a chance to be way to long.

Thanks,

Don

[benesmartin]

Hey there,

I'd recommend going with the last option.

Google will understand from the existing content what is your site about. You don't need to include the word "snowboard" in every URL. If you do so, it may hurt your site instead for trying to "fool" the search engines. On top of that, KWs in URLs are not a strong ranking signal anymore.

Also, the shorter link the better not only for Google but for the user experience as well.

Hope it helps. Cheers, Martin

[snowflake74]

Thanks,

I'm not sure I need to do the full structure now - I thought having paths maybe more of an indicator to the content type but maybe it'll be better to manage these like so:

URL - examplesnowboarding.com/splitboard-backcountry-intro-course/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/technical-performance-camp/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/girls-only-camp/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/private-lessons/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/group-lessons/

vs

URL - examplesnowboarding.com/courses/splitboard-backcountry-intro/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/technical-performance/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/camps/girls-only/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/private/
URL - examplesnowboarding.com/lessons/group/

Does anyone have a preference over which is better on a site with say 70 pages and a 300 post blog?

[donsilvernail]

What is the current structure?

[snowflake74]

No paths just /name-of-course-or-camp/ at present

[badgergravling]

I'd say it depends if you're going to have a significant numbers of courses, camps or lessons and a main landing page for them at examplesnowboarding.com/courses for example.

As a general rule, it's probably a good idea to have courses,camps and lessons in the urls just to give an extra indication to Google, and also to users. And saves those times when you forget to include 'course' on the end of every page title, too...

[snowflake74]

That was the idea really as there are around 20 or so courses. 5-10 camps ect... so a decent amount to gain benefit from the structure.

I don't think there is any risk to forgetting to add -courses to a page however and I'm wondering if I'd be poking the bear too much by changing all the urls fairly drastically if they dont need to so much.

I can still setup the content in courses, camps ect from the cms admin so it's easy for them to manage without a path/ impact.

But yes each section like that will and does have a landing page already pretty much its just in a page name not a clear structure.

So it sounds like adding the extra structure is probably fairly sensible... but maybe more risky than keeping the current structure?

[Katarina-Borovska]

Hi,

Our company faced the same challenge and we decided against your idea. First of all, your urls will be extremely long and they will look spammy indeed. Imagine someone will search for your product and you rank well, but people might not want to visit due to the spammy looking URL. If the website is nicely structured, Google will understand what's going on. If there are a few urls that require the same name/keyword, try to differentiate. Regarding users' orientation on the site - why not use breadcrumbs? It makes a lot more sense than relying on online visitors having to check the lengthy urls.

Thanks

Katarina

[snowflake74]

Which idea did you decide against please? Surely having more paths would work better for breadcrumbs would it not?

Are you saying you think /courses/girls-only looks more spammy than /girls-only-course/ ?

Thank you