The impact of using directories without target keyword on our Rankings

[NielsB]

Hello all,

I have a question regarding a website I am working on. I’ve read a lot of Q en A’s but couldn’t really find the best answer.

For one of our new websites we are thinking about the structure of this website and the corresponding URL-structure. Basically we have a main product (and a few main keywords) which should drive the most traffic to our website, and for which we want to optimize our homepage.

Besides those main keywords, we have an enormous base of long-tail keywords from which we would like to generate traffic. This means we want to create a lot of specific pages which are optimized.

My main question is the following:

We are thinking of two options:

• Option 1: www.example.com/example-keyword-one
• Option 2: www.example.com/directory/example-keyword-one

With option 1 we will link directly from our homepage to the most important pages (which represent our most important keywords). All the pages with the long tail content will be linked from another section on our website, which is one click away from our homepage (specifically a /solutions page which is linked from the footer). All the pages with long-tail content will have this structure www.example.com/example-keyword-one so the URLs will not contain the directory /solutions

With option 2 we will use more subdirectories in our URLs. Specifically, for all the long tail content we would use URLs like this: www.example.com/solutions/example-keyword-one
The directories we want to use wouldn't really have added value in terms of SEO, since they don’t represent important keywords.

• So what is the best way to go? Option 1, straightforward, short URL’s which don’t really represent the linking structure of our website, but only contain important keywords. Or option 2, choose for more directories in our URLs which represent the linking structure of our website, but contain directories which don’t represent important keywords.
• Would the keyword ‘solutions’ in the directory (which doesn’t really relate to the content on the page) have a negative impact on our rankings for that URL?

[RobMay]

It all depends if you want (or are going too):

1. Short URL's usually work best with regards to indexing and product correlation (too long means characters get left off by Google when indexing). Keep things within a short URL length also helps Google index the full length and get the full value of the URL - using your <keywords>to reinforce the URL relation.</keywords>

• Also - Having these URL's linked too from the main page will help flow 'link juice' through the site, providing you keep the amount of links on the homepage to a minimum amount, and mix with other links that are <nofollow>. Usually links beyond 100 will not be crawled by Googlebot.</nofollow>

• Also - If your URL's are strings - make sure to have 301's setup for URL's that include any type of string (?=question123456 or something to that alignment) Make sure to change that string = www.domains.com/keyword-rich-content. This might be nothing for the site/domain you are working on, or might be a step that needs to be included in the site's overhaul project work.

2. Longer URL's (like adding directories or sub-folders) can be good too, depending on your product breakdown in you site architecture. It might not be needed though. If you have hundreds of thousands of products, directories will most likely be needed to sort the data and organize the database being used to work alongside the CMS. Then you would want to go this route, other than having an unorganized ROOT directory with thousands of pages in it (even if dynamically generated)

Each option works, in their own way. Each with supporting documentation and methods. Just something to consider in helping you steer the SEO sea

Cheers!

[NielsB]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the helpful answer! I did a lot of research and also concluded that both options can work. I just haven't found any supporting case studies which clearly shows which of the two alternatives would work best. So if anyone knows a good article related to URL-structure and my question in specific, that would be very welcome!

Thanks!

Regards,

Jorg