Product detail page file names

Worth changing from item # to text name?

[paulewing]

I have a website with about 250 individual product detail pages (static HTML) divided up into 20 or so categories like this:

sitename/gallery/widget.html
sitename/gallery/widget/w123.html
sitename/gallery/widget/w124.html

sitename/gallery/thingamabob.html
sitename/gallery/thingamabob/t125.html
sitename/gallery/thingamabob/t1455.html

I am thinking about changing the detail pages to have the file name be a concatenation of the product name like this:

sitename/gallery/widget/basicwidget.html
sitename/gallery/widget/superwidget.html
sitename/gallery/widget/superwidget.html

This would be easy for me to do since I use a program I wrote to build the categories and detail pages from my inventory database and then just upload the lot. I am planning to leave the old item number pages up at least for awhile until the new pages are indexed for a couple months. Each product page has a link to all my category pages (SSI) so someone landing on an old detail page will be seamlessly moved into my site when they click on a link. My category pages are doing fairly well in Google currently and the names on them will not change, just the links to the detail pages.

Is this a good idea? Are there any problems I haven’t seen?

I know using the /gallery/ directory to store the category pages in was probably not great from a page rank standpoint since it seems I loose a point for each subdirectory level unless the page has a number of outside links. I started that way three years ago to keep things organized, and I think it would cause too much confusion with the SE’s to change it now. Maybe not?

Cheers,

Paul

[Mohamed_E]

Paul,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Since nobody has answered your questions, I will attempt to. Only Google knows the real answers, you will find considerable disagreement in our community about several of them.

There is general agreement that the URL (both domain name and file name) plays some role in the ranking. The big issue is how much of a role. So if the effort is minimal you will gain something by using the product name in the filename. How much you gain is debatable. I am now naming all my new files with keywords, but am not really doing any renaming of existing files, as it just does not seem to me to be worth the trouble.

Your comment about losing page rank per directory level is very controversial here. There are many who agree with you. Others, myself included, believe that PageRank is entirely about link structure, and that the directory structure is totally irrelevant to it.

<added>Check this thread [webmasterworld.com...] for more discussion on the directory level issue.</added>

[killroy]

I can only asure you that the directory depth has NO BEARING on pagerank (only the apearant on-the-fly toolbar PR) and does not influence ranking.

I'd like to add my own qestion. It's regarding a database of companies.

originally I was considering:
sitename.tld/country/companyies/companyname
Problem is that a companies in different countries can have same names. So currently I use
sitename.tld/country/companyies/companyid
would it be best to use:
sitename.tld/country/companyies/companyname-companyid
? that would make urls REALLY long nad hard to write since company names can contain all sort of character.

My problem is the site is so huge I couldn'T give each company a neat label.

What are your opinions?

SN

[paulewing]

Thanks guys. I think I'll give it a shot and see what happens. I'll try to get the changes up with my next content update this weekend.

Cheers,
Paul