Urls and displaying categories

[JesterMagic]

I am working on a ecommerce site and was wondering from a SEO perspective what do people feel is the better option for urls of products.

Is it better to list the categories in the urls (probably never more than 2 deep) like testsite.com/category-title1/subcategory1/product-name

or to list the product like so (all product names are unique)

testsite.com/products/product-name

I have done it both ways in the past but wonder what the current thinking is.

The pages will be supported with breadcrumbs and with mobile (responsive theme) you usually don't see much of the url.

Personally I like seeing the categories in the url.

[lucy24]

Inescapable answer: It Depends.

If the first thing in the URL is /products/ it implies that the site has several other prongs, involving things that are not products for sale: Information, History, Troubleshooting, Discussion and so on. If the first thing is /category/ it implies that the site's main division is into different types of widgets, and then once you get into categories you'll have further options for Sales, Support, Parts and so on.

[netmeg]

I almost never use categories in URLs; in most ecommerce stores I have dealt with, products can exist in multiple categories. Who needs that headache? I go canonical.

[lucy24]

products can exist in multiple categories

I was picturing things that are mutually exclusive-- at least this week-- like
/televisions/
/lawnmowers/
/refrigerators/

[netmeg]

Yea but then someone will come along and decide that there needs to be an /appliances/ category and everything needs to go in that too. Or an /indoor/ and an /outdoor/ category. I guarantee it. Happens every time.

[JesterMagic]

@lucy24 you are correct in your thinking products should not cross categories. @netmeg same thing has happened to me as well there is always a case that comes up that messes with your well laid plans.

My question has become a bit moot now though since I just found out I cannot link products directly from the root. I will probably end up doing major categories and treat some of the subcategories more as tags which will allow me to include products in more than one subcategory.

Thanks for everyone's input.

[seoskunk]

I would display at root for the reason netmeg said, most ecommerce platforms support this I know if you use Magento this works ok.

[netmeg]

I'm not sure if it's native to Magento by now, but there's definitely multiple extensions that will correctly implement canonicals for you.