Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Landing Page URL Structure
-
We are finally setting up landing pages to support our PPC campaigns. There has been some debate internally about the URL structure.
Originally we were planning on URL's like:
- domain.com
- /california
- /florida
- /ny
I would prefer to have the URL's for each state inside a "state" folder like:
- domain.com
- /state
- /california
- /florida
- /ny
- /state
I like having the folders and pages for each state under a parent folder to keep the root folder as clean as possible. Having a folder or file for each state in the root will be very messy.
Before you scream URL rewriting :-). Our current site is still running under Classic ASP which doesn't support URL rewriting. We have tried to use HeliconTech's ISAPI rewrite module for IIS but had to remove it because of too many configuration issues.
Next year when our coding to MVC is complete we will use URL rewriting.
So the question for now: Is there any advantage or disadvantage to one URL structure over the other?
- domain.com
-
From a strict A/B standpoint where the two variables are:
www.domain.com/state/california
You will see no discernible difference in SEO results. That being said, if you plan to expand the URLs later, i.e.
www.domain.com/state/california/santa-monica/our-service-keywords.* then you should probably consider what length they will be and factor that into your decision.
-
Yes. I believe there is an advantage in choosing your second option, for exactly the reason you state. In other words it's better for you and your own organization of your content. It will also make it much easier when and if you implement URL rewrites to give you SEO friendly URLs because if you use any relative URLs on your pages, they will be much easier to identify correctly and update if they are constructed "/state/michigan."
I don't believe there is going to be an advantage or disadvantage to your campaigns or SEO if you choose one versus another. That's my personal opinion. I certainly don't pretend to know what Google favors or doesn't favor at any given point in time.
I certainly hope this helps!
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
URL structure for same product in multiple categories?
Hello everyone ! I am building an ecom store using wordpress. I have assigned multiple categories to the same product. What should be the URL structure when users are navigating with different product categories? Categories Assigned: tshirt, blue, striped
Technical SEO | | Dingos
Product Name: blue-striped-tshirt Option 01: Matching site navigation breadcrumb to product url URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt
Breadcrumb - home/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/blue/blue-striped-tshirt (canonical to 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/color/blue/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/striped/blue-striped-tshirt (canonical to 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/type/striped/blue-striped-tshirt Option 02: Same product urls and different breadcrumbs based on user site navigation URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt
Breadcrumb - home/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt (url same as 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/color/blue/blue-striped-tshirt URL - ecomstore.com/tshirt/blue-striped-tshirt (url same as 1 product page)
Breadcrumb - home/type/striped/blue-striped-tshirt I have decided to got with Option 01 so that the product in each category can be ranked according to each category keyword. Which option is the best according to your experience or is there any other best practice?0 -
Japanese URL-structured sitemap (pages) not being indexed by Bing Webmaster Tools
Hello everyone, I am facing an issue with the sitemap submission feature in Bing Webmaster Tools for a Japanese language subdirectory domain project. Just to outline the key points: The website is based on a subdirectory URL ( example.com/ja/ ) The Japanese URLs (when pages are published in WordPress) are not being encoded. They are entered in pure Kanji. Google Webmaster Tools, for instance, has no issues reading and indexing the page's URLs in its sitemap submission area (all pages are being indexed). When it comes to Bing Webmaster Tools it's a different story, though. Basically, after the sitemap has been submitted ( example.com/ja/sitemap.xml ), it does report an error that it failed to download this part of the sitemap: "page-sitemap.xml" (basically the sitemap featuring all the sites pages). That means that no URLs have been submitted to Bing either. My apprehension is that Bing Webmaster Tools does not understand the Japanese URLs (or the Kanji for that matter). Therefore, I generally wonder what the correct way is to go on about this. When viewing the sitemap ( example.com/ja/page-sitemap.xml ) in a web browser, though, the Japanese URL's characters are already displayed as encoded. I am not sure if submitting the Kanji style URLs separately is a solution. In Bing Webmaster Tools this can only be done on the root domain level ( example.com ). However, surely there must be a way to make Bing's sitemap submission understand Japanese style sitemaps? Many thanks everyone for any advice!
Technical SEO | | Hermski0 -
301 redirect from dynamic url to static page
Hi, i want to redirect from this old link http://www.g-store.gr/product_info.php?products_id=1735/ to this one https://www.g-store.gr/golf-toualetas.html I have done several attempts but with no result. I anyone can help i will appreciate. My website runs in an Apache server with cpanel. Thank you
Technical SEO | | alstam0 -
Rel=Canonical For Landing Pages
We have PPC landing pages that are also ranking in organic search. We've decided to create new landing pages that have been improved to rank better in natural search. The PPC team however wants to use their original landing pages so we are unable to 301 these pages to the new pages being created. We need to block the old PPC pages from search. Any idea if we can use rel=canonical? The difference between old PPC page and new landing page is much more content to support keyword targeting and provide value to users. Google says it's OK to use rel=canonical if pages are similar but not sure if this applies to us. The old PPC pages have 1 paragraph of content followed by featured products for sale. The new pages have 4-5 paragraphs of content and many more products for sale. The other option would be to add meta noindex to the old PPC landing pages. Curious as to what you guys think. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Splitting Page Authority with two URLs for the same page.
Hello guys, My website is currently holding two different URLs for the same page and I am under the impression such set up is dividing my Page Authority and Link Juice. We currently have the following page with both URLs below: www.wbresearch.com/soldiertechnologyusa/home.aspx
Technical SEO | | JoaoPdaCosta-WBR
www.wbresearch.com/soldiertechnologyusa/ Analysing the page authority and backlinks I identified that we are splitting the amount of backlinks (links from sites, social media and therefore authority). "/home.aspx"
PA: 67
Linking Root Domains: 52
Total Links: 272 "/"
PA: 64
Linking Root Domains: 29
Total Links: 128 I am under the impression that if the URLs were the same we would maximise our backlinks and therefore page authority. My Question: How can I fix this? Should I have a 301 redirect from the page "/" to the "/home.aspx" therefore passing the authority and link juice of “/” directly to “/homes.aspx”? Trying to gather thoughts and ideas on this, suggestions are much appreciated? Thanks!0 -
Determining When to Break a Page Into Multiple Pages?
Suppose you have a page on your site that is a couple thousand words long. How would you determine when to split the page into two and are there any SEO advantages to doing this like being more focused on a specific topic. I noticed the Beginner's Guide to SEO is split into several pages, although it would concentrate the link juice if it was all on one page. Suppose you have a lot of comments. Is it better to move comments to a second page at a certain point? Sometimes the comments are not super focused on the topic of the page compared to the main text.
Technical SEO | | ProjectLabs1 -
Structuring URL's for better SEO
Hello, We were rolling our fresh urls for our new service website. Currently we have our structure as www.practo.com/health/dental/clinic/bangalore We like to have it as www.practo.com/health/dental-clinic-bangalore Can someone advice us better which one of the above structure would work out better and why? Should this be a focus of attention while going ahead since this is like a search engine platform for patients looking out for actual doctors. Thanks, Aditya
Technical SEO | | shanky10 -
Optimal Structure for Forum Thread URL
For getting forum threads ranked, which is best and why? site.com**/topic/**thread-title-goes-here site.com**/t/**thread-title-goes-here site.com**/**thread-title-goes-here I'd take comfort in knowing that SEOmoz uses the middle version, except that "q" is more meaningful to a human than "t". The last option seems like the best bet overall, except that users could potentially steal urls that I may want to use in the future. My old structure was site.com/forum/topic/TOPIC_ID-thread-title-goes-here so obviously any of those would be a vast improvement, but I might as well make the best choice now so I only have to change once.
Technical SEO | | PatrickGriffith0