Do subfolders for grouping common services pages help SEO?

[seomozinator]

Hello, fellow MOZers.

Here is the question:

Is there any benefits/disadvantages of having pages, grouped by common type of service, to be put into subfolder with keyphrase-friendly phrase?

Example:

We have website https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/ and several services under "SEO" niche, such as:

• SEO (page name seo-houston.php)
• Social Media Marketing (page name social-media-marketing-houston.php)
• Email Marketing (page name email-marketing-houston.php)

So, is it better to have these pages in root directory like this:

• https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com**/seo-houston.php**
• https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com**/houston-social-media-marketing.php**
• https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com**/email-marketing-houston.php**

OR is it better to group them in subfolder "houston-seo-services" for "extra" keyword and convenience reasons like this:

• https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/**houston-seo-services**/seo-houston.php
• https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/**houston-seo-services**/social-media-marketing-houston.php
• https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/**houston-seo-services**/email-marketing-houston.php

Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks!

[Linda-Vassily]

Is there a reason to have the extra subfolder, like a category page with useful content or an extra grouping to help navigate a large amount of content? Then yes, that is a good idea. I wouldn't add an extra level for the sake of extra keywords.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

HI Charles,

If you run down the route of adding additional subfolders, you are very likely to be caught by the new Doorway Page algorithm. if you have pages for pages sake, then it could get messy.

Here is what Google has to say about them.

Here are questions to ask of pages that could be seen as doorway pages:

• Is the purpose to optimize for search engines and funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site, or are they an integral part of your site’s user experience?
• Are the pages intended to rank on generic terms yet the content presented on the page is very specific?
• Do the pages duplicate useful aggregations of items (locations, products, etc.) that already exist on the site for the purpose of capturing more search traffic?
• Are these pages made solely for drawing affiliate traffic and sending users along without creating unique value in content or functionality?
• Do these pages exist as an “island?” Are they difficult or impossible to navigate to from other parts of your site? Are links to such pages from other pages within the site or network of sites created just for search engines?

By the sounds of things, I suspect you would fall into at least one of those grey areas. if they were to be produced, you would have to be able to justify them very well with lots of supporting content that was genuinely useful.

-Andy