URL Structure with deep Categories

[sethgecko]

Ladies n gents

Which sort of URLs do you suggest for Webshops with a deep structure of categories:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cat1/cat2/cat3/cat4/cat5/cat6/

(could get really long)

or better use just the last 2 categories:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cat5/cat6/

?

thanks for your suggestions

seth

[RyanKent]

You are free to use whatever structure makes the most sense for you. I would recommend taking some time to think out the structure. Make sure it is sensible and does not add categories which are not useful.

What is important from a SEO perspective is how many clicks does it take users to access your pages.

Example 1 - URL: www.yourdomain.com/products/sports/tennis/rackets/wilson/x1000

If you have a link on your home page for "current specials" or "product of the month" that goes directly to the x1000, then it is 1-click for users to find the page. If you offer a link to "Wilson tennis rackets" then it would be 2 clicks for users to find the x1000 page.

Example 2 - URL: www.yourdomain.com/tennis-rackets/wilson-x1000

Without any special links it would be 2 clicks from your home page to see your x1000 page. From a SEO point of view this would not be as good as the first example above with the direct link to the item.

[JoeAmadon]

Seth, Ryan's response gets at a more important issue than the URL, so if you can flatten out your navigation, I would recommend that.

In response to the question you asked, I would recommend http://www.yourdomain.com/cat5/cat6/. With six categories in your URL, you'll be targeting too many keywords with each page and potentially having too many pages competing for the same keywords. SEO isn't all about getting as much traffic as you can, but getting it to the right pages so you can convert.

[KeriMorgret]

An overlooked use for directory structure is for your analytics. Lunametrics has a great post that will get you thinking about this over at http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2010/09/22/designing-google-analytics-friendly-site/.

[sethgecko]

Thanks for your help.

@ryan&joe: yes - I do know about that issue - unfortunately i dont have any chance to flatten our navigation (only because of people working with the navigation in our company) - im trying it for already 2 years, but its getting better and better