Non-Existent Parent Pages SEO Impact

[Alder]

Hello,

I'm working with a client that is creating a new site. They currently are using the following URL structure:

http://clientname.com/products/furry-cat-muffins/

But the landing page for the directory /products/ does not actually have any content. They have a similar issue for the /about/ directory where the menu actually sends you to /about/our-story/ instead of /about/.

Does it hurt SEO to have the URL structure set up in this way and also does it make sense to create 301 redirects from /about/ to /about/our-story/?

[BeanstalkIM]

Provided that there are no links to http://clientname.com/products/ and obviously it's not part of the breadcrumbs you're fine though you may want to consider adding these pages to give you a point to all products (of a list of categories of products), etc.

But no ... the structure itself isn't inherently going to cause problems.