Does a good directory structure helps in indexing?

[coolvicki7]

Does a good directory structure helps in indexing?

Means pages organised into different directories rather than dumping
all pages into base...

Example - which is more likely to index?

/category/sub-category/product.html

or

/product.html

Assume the site to have more than 50,000 pages.

[ashear]

Your best bet is to keep as close to the topic as possible, if you can provide just the targeted key-phrase in your URL you will benefit greatly.

I wish I could do this on my largest sites, in which I have 100’s of millions of pages.

[tedster]

It's more about the internal linking structure than any apparent directory structure, from what I see. The click-path does not need to mirror the directory structure,though in some cases it does. Of course the name of the directory can play in, but that's not the "structure".

[ashear]

It's more about the internal linking structure than any apparent directory structure, from what I see. The click-path does not need to mirror the directory structure,though in some cases it does. Of course the name of the directory can play in, but that's not the "structure".

Great point!

I like to call it flattening the site, espeically when its a large one.

[steveb]

Directory structure is good to see actual indexing for sites over 1000 pages. having everything in the root will have you clueless.

site:example.com/dir1/dir2/ will show you the pages indexed in that site section, which can help you see if you need to send more links to some site sections to get them fully crawled.

[tedster]

An excellent point, steveb. The directory structure certainly does help a big site analyze their indexing, even though it doesn't directly improve it. Even when rewriting urls and using virtual directory names, chosing those names with conscious attention and care can make informationa lot easier to see in a site: query, or even in your own analytics.

[Oliver Henniges]

Another advantage of such a natural folder structure is the opportunity to account for embracing terms, because I guess only some peoplee will search for the product name, others for the category names. Make sure you repeat these category terms in the page's titles and descriptions.

I have followed this strategy from the very beginning and still believe that it also prevented my site from tanking more than once: Your structure becomes much more "natural", particularly if you manage to define a "fractal" structure with varying depths of category definitions (like eg the ODP).

> Assume the site to have more than 50,000 pages.

Your major problems, however, will be practical ones:

Who is going to define those categories in a reasonable manner?
Do you have a software tool, which allows you to move/redefine complete branches? What are you going to do if - once the pages are in the index - you later find a different structure much more applicable and want to move, rename or redirect some of the bigger nodes?

[contentwithcontent]

Makes you wonder what the guidelines mean when they say "Make a site with a clear hierarchy..."