Categories and URL Structure - When to add a new directory?

[SEO-Pump.com]

I've been wondering this for quite awhile so I figured I should just ask.

Suppose my website has 5 categories and the url structure looks like:

www.mysite.com/category1/

www.mysite.com/category2/

do I also want to create a landing page for the above categories at the same URL depth as the homepage of the site?

www.mysite.com/category1.html

OR what about:

www.mysite.com/category1/index.html

Which  is a better way to do this?

Also, if your site began as fairly small and your 5 categories were your only other pages other than index, about, and contact pages (meaning you really had no reason to create separate directories), then as time passes, you decide to add 3 subcategory pages that would fit into a page: www.mysite.com/category1.html

would you add a folder with he same name as the html page, and then rename the html file as index.html and place it into the new folder?

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Bradley,

let's start with the first doubt... when you talk about a "landing page for the above categories", do you mean one landing for all 5 categories, or one landing page per category.

In the second case, the same /category1/, /category2/... should be treated and considered as landing pages.

In the first case, instead, your idea of having the landing on the same level of the architecture as the home page is formally correct, but - IMHO - it would be poor UX solution, because your are obliging the users to pass trough one possibly useless click in order to arrive to the category they are interested.

I also did not really understand your second question, but normally if you have to start adding subdirectories, than the URL of a subdirectory should be something like this:

www.domain.com/directory1/subdirectory2

as saying, you will add a second level of deepness in your navigational architecture.

[SEO-Pump.com]

I'm sorry, there was a typo in my question.. When I used the term "subdirectory" what I was actually referring to was a product page.

So, essentially what you are saying is that for my lowest URL depth where the website homepage is found, the only files there are going to be index?