SEO - New URL structure

[Katarina-Borovska]

Hi,

Currently we have the following url structure for all pages, regardless of the hierarchy: domain.co.uk/page, such as domain/blog name.

Can you, please confirm the following:

1. What is the benefit of organising the pages as a hierarchy, i.e. domain/features/feature-name or domain/industries/industry-name or domain/blog/blog name etc.

2. This will create too many 301s - what is Google's tolerance of redirects? Is it worth for us changing the url structure or would you only recommend to add breadcrumbs?

Many thanks

Katarina

[ClaytonJ]

Hi

Not clear 100% on the question.  Firstly if the site is ranking well under current strategy then recommend where appropriate that continues. It sounds like every page hangs straight off the root domain?    However, if the opportunity presents to build out a hierarchical structure then we would recommend same.

The benefit of a  hierarchical structure is it builds out topical authority or makes it easier for search engines to interpret the site.  All google has done is roll the old dewy library system into the site maps.  By analogy the more books you have hanging off the History section (parent subfolder) the better the site should be seen in the context of providing answers to history.   Then it comes down to the quality of pages hanging off the subfolder and how much shared.

So in short to answer your question a hierarchical structure makes your site easier for Google to understand and builds out topical authority which long term is future proofing against voice search.

Onto the second part of the question, there is no problems with 301's per se as long as it is one hop.. so to redirect a page more than 3 times is a big negative as Google often does not crawl those pages.  Recommended practice to change the redirects from page 1 > page 4 and page 2 > page 4, page 3 > 4, etc so all old redirects point in one hop to the final destination page.

Hope that helps.

[Katarina-Borovska]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

'...if the site is ranking well under current strategy...' - I mean, we don't know as there is nothing to compare with. Recently we have been presented with an idea of creating subfolders and clearly showing the site hierarchy via urls. Apparently, it should make an instant difference and should improve our ranks. I'm really unsure if this is guaranteed.

FYI - we would never 301 one url more than just once so no chain. However, I wonder if we had 95% of all site urls redirected if this would impact us negatively.

Also - one more thing we are doing now (and we never used to have) is creating portfolio pages - very relevant pages linking from one main page to demonstrate the hierarchy further.

I'm trying to find out if adding so many 301s and putting all the effort into creating a hierarchy via additional articles, pages, breadcrumbs etc would definitely result in a positive outcome.

Thanks

Katarina

[ClaytonJ]

Hi

No your sweet on the redirects/301's - many sites have 95% redirects from http to https for example.  So no chains and you  are fine.

Well my view on above is that advice on a hierarchical structure is dangerous.  Our job is to always adopt a "first do no harm" approach. We have many clients - no hierarchical structure and awesome rankings.  Do we very slowly build hierarchical structures into them - yes. It makes life easier for all. But would we touch the top traffic driving pages - 100% no. It is too high a risk.  So you need to do a  proper evaluation of the site and what pages are ranking - getting clicks and what are not.  There may be sections, a low risk that can move into a hierarchical structure - start there.   But do not make a change for change sake to follow what is now good practice.

Hope that helps.

[Katarina-Borovska]

Thanks for your time.

Excellent! Now I'm super scared haha But I  understand what you are saying and will share your advice with the team.

Many thanks.

Katarina

[Kenn_Gold]

One additional thought to add extra complexity, adding hierarchy is fine, but try to avoid increasing page depth while doing so.

John Mueller discussed this in a few places in the past year that page depth > URL structure.

[jasongmcmahon]

It all depends what you're selling & where you're selling it, also if your hierarchy structure allows for the inclusion of keywords including geo locations, all the better.

Somewhat dated but useful article https://moz.com/learn/seo/url

[Katarina-Borovska]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. We sell B2B software.

The website is structured as global, /us, /au etc. It's just the urls appear all equal atm.

Thanks

Katarina

[effectdigital]

Google's tolerance for 301 redirects is pretty high as long as you use speedy ones (implement via NginX - 'engine X', not via .htaccess lines). If  the redirects are logical and they don't chain or contact with incorrect redirect types (Meta refreshes, 302s etc) then usually you're ok. Still it will take Google time to digest all the changes and you could see a small interim performance dip

Flat URL structure tends to build the 'authority' of URLs better, making them more powerful. Deeper and more nested URL structures serve 'relevance' better as they give much more context. If your domain's overall SEO authority is low to begin with, then a flatter structure may be better for now. If you have lots of SEO authority then you may be able to 'irrigate' more deeply nested URLs more effectively, thus reaping long-tail gains (so each structure has strengths and weaknesses, depending upon your current standing on the web)

Flatter structures rank better for larger terms, but only if you have the SEO authority to power them. Deeper structures rank better for longer-tail terms (but thousands of them) - again though without the right SEO authority metrics, there will be very few droplets of 'SEO juice' which end up reaching the lower-level pages

In the end most sites evolve to a point where they adopt the more deeply nested structure, but they usually suffer growing pains as they transition. In the long run it can be superior, but only for sites which can make good use of it (e.g: eCommerce web stores with categories, products, collections, product variants etc). If a site is services based it often doesn't have so much SEO authority and also - the deeper structure isn't really so relevant! A services based site will usually offer far fewer services than an eCommerce store offers products (tens vs hundreds of thousands)

A strong publisher with lots of ranking power (online magazines, newspaper digital editions) will often switch to the deeper structure for listing their content and (in the long run) see a lot of benefit from that. For smaller publications (blogs, blog or news pages on business / non-publisher sites) - it's often not worth the move

[R0bin_L0rd]

Hi there! There seems to be a bit of confusion in this thread between URL structure and Information Architecture. Having more folders in a URL doesn't reduce the authority but pages with more folders in the URL tend to be deeper in the sites linking architecture, which means they tend to have less authority because they aren't as close to the surface. The difference between internal links and url format is an important one. There's a blog post here which explains in more depth.

From my perspective, here are the benefits of having pages within folders;

• There is an opportunity to put more relevant keywords in the URL without stuffing
• Easier folder-level reporting in Google Analytics, Search Console etc.
• Some increased understanding for Google of how pages hang together - there is some evidence that Google uses folder structure for ranking before it knows much about the page for example.

In terms of managing authority for pages and signals of relevance I'd be looking much more towards the internal linking to those pages. I wouldn't rely on Google intuitively understanding the topical connection between two pages unless both of those pages target that topic or have relevant links between them. So for example, say you have two pages;

1. site.com/widgets
2. site.com/doodads

If those pages are both subcategories of trinkets you could reformat them to be;

1. site.com/trinkets/widgets
2. site.com/trinkets/doodads

Having "trinkets" in the url might help both pages rank for "trinkets" type keywords, like "doodad trinkets" for example. However, I wouldn't rely on this change to help Google understand that widgets are related to doodads - you can handle that much more effectively with relevant internal links between /widgets and /doodads that make the relation clear.

In terms of whether there is a risk to making this change - this is essentially a migration and definitely comes with risks associated, even if all of your redirects are 1:1 and direct. It'll take time for Google to find the redirects and new pages, and as a rule of thumb, link equity isn't passed perfectly along a 301 redirect so I wouldn't expect these new pages to just inherit the strength of the old ones.

I think it comes down to weighing up whether the benefits I listed above outweigh the risk of an in-site migration. If you think the keyword targeting opportunities will make enough of a difference then great but I wouldn't rely on url structure as a way to get Google to understand your site differently - the impact of internal links is going to be a far greater factor.