Which URL should I choose when combining content?

[curtis-yakketyyak]

I am combining content from two similar articles into one. URL 1 has a featured snippet and better URL structure, but only 5,000 page views in the last 6 month, and has 39 keywords ranking in the top 10. URL 2 has worse structure, but over 100k page views in the last 6 months, and 236 keywords in the top 10.

Basically, I'm wondering if I keep the one with the better URL structure or the one with more traffic. The deleted URL will be redirected to whichever I keep.

[Xiano]

What do the link profiles for each of the pages look like? And what is the traffic source breakdown for the two pages?

[curtis-yakketyyak]

The title of the article will be Sleep Disorders and Headache. The first URL is domain/blog/sleep-disroders-headache. The second is domain/blog/sleep/. First is 95% organic, and second is 97% organic.

[Xiano]

Sorry, by link profile I meant how many links and of what quality did you have towards each page.

[curtis-yakketyyak]

Ah, my bad. Looking at the numbers below, I'm assuming I should go with URL 2. I just didn't know if having the better URL slug outweighed some of those other factors.

URL 1
Page Authority: 27
Linking Domains: 2
Inbound Links: 9
Ranking Keywords: 106

URL 2:
Page Authority: 36
Linking Domains: 77
Inbound Links: 111
Ranking Keywords: 411

[Xiano]

I guess it depends on how long term you're thinking.

For a shorter term (and less risky) project I would definitely stick with URL 2; Carefully improve the content using elements from URL 1 and then redirect from 1 to 2.

If you're in it for the long term and are open to a (hopefully) short term reduction in rankings, (and therefore traffic) you could do it the other way round. The redirect would pass any link juice across, albeit slightly diluted, and it would not be unreasonable to expect URL 1 to start to rank in a very similar way to URL 2 over time.

If this were a new piece I would certainly guide you towards the longer, more descriptive URL but, given the performance of the existing page, it is a more risky strategy. Your current results clearly show that URL isn't a massive factor!

I don't think there is a definitive answer here, but I hope I have helped a little.

[curtis-yakketyyak]

Yeah, I think this was just tripping me up a little bit because of how differently the pages perform. You make a good point - URL doesn't seem to be a big factor in this instance.

Thanks for your insight, Alex.