Domain and URL Structure
Domain and URL Structure – SEO Module #2
Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz created the below image some time ago. In my experience it is still very valid and is a reasonable model to follow.
Today I will be showing you the best domain and URL structures for SEO. To kick this bad boy off, the definitions of URL structure and Domain structure are:
Domain Structure: The hierarchical placement of pages within a website.
URL Structure: The layout of a web page’s URL, which should ideally reflect the hierarchical placement of that page within a website.
Domain Structure
The best way to imagine this concept is a tree – the base of the tree is the homepage, with the category pages branching out to product pages.
Why is this important? If you imagine how strong a tree trunk needs to be to support all the branches and leaves above it. SEO works on the same principle. If a website has lots of pages it is best that they are supported by category pages, as leaves are by large branches.
URL Structure
Ideally, URLs should be named so it is easy for both search engines and users to understand what is contained on the pages.
“A site’s URL structure should be as simple as possible. Consider organizing your content so that URLs are constructed logically and in a manner that is most intelligible to humans (when possible, readable words rather than long ID numbers)”
– Excerpt from Google Webmaster Tools.
What this basically means is to create URLs that make sense.
Bad!
www.example.com.au/bug.php?id=6366&edit=1
Good!
www.example.com.au/category-page-1/name-of-a-page/name-of-a-post
URLs shouldn’t be spammy, and they shouldn’t repeat the same words over and over for example:
www.buylaptopbatteries.com.au/laptop-battery-brands/laptop-batterys-asus
In this example the words laptop and batteries are in EVERY folder or page of the URL. This is better:
www.buylaptopbatteries.com.au/laptop-brands/asus
This shows that the site is about buying laptop batteries, the brand of the brand you are looking to buy, and the brand itself. This could once again be refined to:
www.buylaptopbatteries.com.au/brands/asus
Part 2 to come soon!
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