CODEWITHSUNDEEP
seo
Pure.Krome
Pure.Krome

Reputation: 87087

Is a deep directory structure a bad thing for SEO?

a friend of mine told me that the company he works at are redoing their SEO for their large website. Large == both number of pages and traffic they get a day.

Currently they have a (quote) deeply nested site , which i'm assuming means /x/y/z/a/b/c.. or something. I also know it's very unRESTful from some of the pages i've also seen -> eg. foo.blah?a=1&b=2&c=3......z=24 (yep, lots of crap in the url).

So updating their SEO sounds like a much needed thing.

But, they are going flat. I mean -> totally flat. eg. /foo-bar-pew-pew-abc-article1

This scares the bollox out of me.

From what he said (if i understood him right), each - character doesn't mean a new heirachial level.

so /foo-bar-pew-pew-abc-article1 does not mean /foo/bar/pew/pew/abc/article1 A space could be replace by a -. A + represents a space, but only if the two words are suppose to be one word (whatever that means). ie. Jean-Luke will be jean+luke but if i had a subject like 'hello world, that would be listed ashello-world`.

Excuse me while i blow my head up.

Is this just mean or is it totally silly to go completly flat. To mean, I was under the impression that when SEO people say keep it as flat as possible, they are trying to say keep it to 1 or 2 levels. 4 is the utter max=.

Is this me or is a flat heirachy a 'really really good thing' for seo ... for MEDIUM and LARGE sites (lots of resources, not necessairly lots of hits/page views).

Upvotes: 6

Views: 4614

Answers (3)

Eric
Eric

Reputation: 2087

Well, let's take a step back and look at what SEO is supposed to accomplish; it's meant to help a search engine identify quality, relevant content for users based on key phrases and terms.

Take, for example, the following blog URLs: * http://blog.example.com/articles/2010/01/20/how-to-improve-seo/ * http://blog.example.com/how-to-improve-seo/

Yes, one is deep and the other is flat; but the URL structure is important for two reasons:

  1. URL terms and phrases are high-value targets for determining relevance of a page by a search engine
  2. A confusing URL may immediately force a user to skip your link in the search results

Let's face it: Google and other search engines can associate even the worst URLs with relevant content.

Take, for example, a search for "sears kenmore white refrigerator" in Google: http://www.google.com/search?q=sears+kenmore+white+refrigerator&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a.

Notice the top hit? The URL is http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04665802000P , and yet Google replaces the lousy URL with www.sears.com › Refrigerators › Top Freezers. (Granted, 2 results down is the true URL.)

If your goal for SEO is optimized organic relevance, then I would wholeheartedly recommend generating either key/value pairs in the URL, like www.sears.com/category/refrigerators/company/kenmore (meh), or phrase-like URLs like www.sears.com/kenmore/refrigerators/modelNumber. You want to align your URLs with the user's search terms and phrases to maximize your effort.

In the end, if you offer valuable content and you structure your content and site properly, the search engines will accurately gather it. You just need to help them realize how specific and authoritative your content is. :)

Upvotes: 7

SkyBlues87
SkyBlues87

Reputation: 1235

Flat or deeply nested really shouldn't affect the SEO. The key part is how those individual pages are linked to will determine how they get ranked. I did write some basic stuff on this years ago see here, but essentially if pages are not buried deeply within a site, i.e. it takes several clicks (or links from Google's perspective) then they should rank fairly much the same in either case. Google used to put a lot more weight on keywords in URL's but this has been scaled back in more recent algorithm changes. It helps to have keywords there, but its no longer the be-all and end-all.

What you/they will need to consider are the following two important points:

1) How will the URL structure be perceived by the users of the site? Will they they be able to easily navigate the site and not have to rely on the URL structure in the address bar?

2) In making navigational changes such as this its vitally important to set-up redirects from old url's. Google, hates 404's and they should either put in 410 (Gone) HTTP responses for pages are no longer valid or 301 HTTP response for permanent redirects (with new url).

In making any large changes such as this you can save loads of time getting the site indexed successfully by utilising XML sitemaps and Google's webmaster console.

Upvotes: 0

Michael Thamm
Michael Thamm

Reputation: 131

Generally the less navigation to reach content the better. But with a logical breadcrumb strategy and well thought out deep linking the excess of directory depth can be managed and not hurt seo and the visibility in search. Remember that Google is trying to return the most relevant link and the best user experience, so if your site has 3 urls coming up for the same search term and it take 2 or 3 exits to find the appropriate content, Google will read that as bad and start lowering all of your urls in SERPs.

You have to consider how visitors will find your content - not navigate it. Think content discovery and just navigation.

HTH

Upvotes: 0

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