How important is it to organize pages into directories?

[smithaa02]

Going over the Google's official Search Engine Optimization Guide:

[google.com...]

And they make a big deal about organizing pages into relevant directories. How important is this?

For example on one of my sites a large number of pages exist straight off of the webroot. Does it make any sense that google would give an advantage to page merely because it was in a directory? Wouldn't longer URL's (which obviously you'll have by using directories) water down the keyword concentration in the URL?

[Planet13]

Actually, i think that probably navigation plays a bigger part than what the actual directory structure is.

some people call it siloing. some people call it verticals, But what it basically means is that you want your pages to have links to the most "relevant" other pages.

I base this primarily on what i have read many senior members on this forum write in the past.

I know this isn't exactly what you are asking, but I hope it helps.

[aristotle]

For a small site, say 50 pages or less, I think it's fine to put all the pages in the root directory. That's what I've always done, and it's always worked out really well. I've never created a large site, but it would probably get unwieldy unless you implement a directory structure.

[Simsi]

Agree with both the responses above - both work for me. I'd use folders on a big site but only so it looks neater and more obviously categorised for user's benefit.

[g1smd]

While the old way was to have a folder heirarchy for the site and show that structure in the URL, nowadays that will often get you into trouble.

The problem comes when a deep content page might be listable in several categories. The deep page will have multiple URLs, with a different path above it. Using breadcrumb navigation simply adds to the problems.

Searchengines will show one URL in the SERPs and hide the others, therefore you'll likely have an unnatural bias in the visitor counts for certain folders of the site.

Visitors to those pages presented with breadcrumb navigation may well find that navigation to not be all that helpful. In many cases one of the other folder structures might have been more useful to the visitor but they'll likely never get to see it.

So, for a site with multi-faceted navigation it is fine to have a folder structure for category and search pages, but the URLs for the final product pages should NOT include any of the folder names.

Old way:

www.example.com/widgets/acme/green/rotating/left-handed

linked to

www.example.com/widgets/acme/green/rotating/left-handed/model34684

www.example.com/widgets/acme/left-handed/green/rotating

linked to

www.example.com/widgets/acme/left-handed/green/rotating/model34684

www.example.com/acme/widgets/green/rotating/left-handed

linked to

www.example.com/acme/widgets/green/rotating/left-handed/model34684

www.example.com/acme/widgets/left-handed/green/rotating

linked to

www.example.com/acme/widgets/left-handed/green/rotating/model34684

...where you can navigate up and down the folder structure using breadcrumbs and see useful sub-category listings or product listings at any level of folder.

New way:

www.example.com/widgets/acme/green/rotating/left-handed

www.example.com/widgets/acme/left-handed/green/rotating

www.example.com/acme/widgets/green/rotating/left-handed

www.example.com/acme/widgets/left-handed/green/rotating

all link to:

www.example.com/173820082-acme-model-34684-widget

When the product page is requested, the page script should also check the URL as requested was entirely correct. It should redirect to the correct URL if it was not (truncated URL, or URL with appended unwanted junk).

[edited by: g1smd at 8:28 pm (utc) on Sep 19, 2011]

[Nino_D]

[youtube.com...]

Matt Cutts explains in the video that it doesn’t really make a difference whether you put URL keywords in the filename or directory path of the URL. The example he gave to explain the difference between the two is as follows: http://example.com/tools/hammers/acme-metal-pounder for keywords in the directory path, and http://example.com/tools-hammers-acme-metal-pounder for keywords in the file name.

According to the video, this distinction does not make a difference in Google’s ranking of the page, so for SEO purposes, they are equivalent.

Matt Cutts also points out that the first of the two examples, in which the keywords are in the path and not all run together looks much more natural and will appear normal to the user, whereas the first one looks like spam because of how jumbled all the keywords are. It is therefore better to use the first one as it is more likely to encourage actual visitors to click through to your site.

The conclusion is that while you should have keywords in your URL, there is no need (for SEO purposes) to put them all in a filename, and it looks better to users to have them all in separate directories, so that is the best option.

[Nino_D]

@g1smd
isn't it (SEO-wise) better to include keywords into url of product page and then duplicated content problem (product page being in multi categories) sort with rel=canonical ?

[walkman]

At most I'd use
index > category > page

Maybe add one more layer for large sites but that's pushing it.

[g1smd]

Forgot to add to the previous post:

The new way will also see that instead of the product page showing a single breadcrumb heirarchy, it will link back to all of the relevant categories that the product might have been listed in.

[deadsea]

URLs should be:
1) Descriptive
2) Memorable
3) Navigatable
(in that order)

Directories typically get in the way and make the urls too long and not memorable. My sites typically have hundreds of thousands of documents at the root level. They also have lots error handling so that somebody typing in:
/widgets.html
/widgets?foo
/Widgets
and lots of other combinations would get redirected to the correct
/widgets
page.

I also find that it helps to implement a 404 page that uses internal search to try and figure out what the user is looking for and redirect them to the appropriate place automatically if possible.

[Zivush]

The largest site of mine gets 5k visits per day to its categories.
It has ~ 50 categories.
Whenever I had a new topic to write about I create a category.
I use Wordpress. Categories for me are additional pages used to concentrate articles based on their topic.
It makes it easier for readers to navigate between articles and it makes sense. (I don't use tags though).

Just like an article, these categories have long tail titles and good description.

[smithaa02]

Thx for all the replies. Was interesting Cutts thought there wasn't much difference between long directory URLs and long hyphen separated URLs although he didn't seem to recommend multiple hyphened urls (somewhat contradictory).

A tangent question is...are short urls better than long urls? My personal theory is that just like a page subdivides its juice over all its links, an URL has so many ranking points to allocate and the more terms it has in the URL, the more you water down your 'URL juice'...otherwise you could use say /california-blue-green-red-widget-discount-repair-etc....php and really load yourself up. Any idea if my theory has any merit? To me it would make sense that google could prefer short URLs (and perhaps short domain names) because they can't double dip as much.

Lastly, to me the concern about the URL's is that google is using some sort of grouping mechanism that is going beyond what most of us suspect. The extent to which hierarchy and grouping in an article titled 'Search Engine Optimization' may offer important clues as to how google works.

For example, it states:

"It's always beneficial to organize your content so that visitors have a good sense of where one content topic begins and another ends. Breaking your content up into logical chunks or divisions helps users find the content they want faster....Avoid: Dumping large amounts of text on varying topics onto a page without paragraph, subheading, or layout separation" ...again interesting advice for an SEO document (not a user design document).

So does google use some sort of recursive like algorithm to classify the different portion of the website? Perhaps they classify your site in general as being of theme/topic X. Your subdirectories as belonging to themes/topics X/Y/Z (perhaps why it is important to have subdirectories). Pages also then get assigned to J,K,L,M classifications. Headers perhaps another subclasification and then paragraphs below that? Perhaps each paragraph has its own collective SEO identity in the eyes of google...?

[g1smd]

Yes, it is good to have a heirarchical navigtion structure, but it is not always a good idea to reflect that structure into the URLs for individual content pages.

[Zivush]

Long URL are better, but not too long..
Just like the title of an article, URL's is part of the search terms.
Type in Google "widget" and see how the matching term becomes in bold letters.
A URL with the term in it gets advantage.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

they make a big deal about organizing pages into relevant directories. How important is this?

I think it just became more important than ever but I suggest, based on my recent experience with Google, that you MAKE SURE to keep informational(guides, tips, how to's) and transactional(items for sale, affiliate etc) pages separate.

[Robert Charlton]

Type in Google "widget" and see how the matching term becomes in bold letters.
A URL with the term in it gets advantage.

Attracting the searcher's eye to bolded keywords on the serp creates some click-through benefits, but the ranking effect of keywords in the pathname is miniscule.

[Zivush]

Please, read this

I then asked Matt if all new sites should make sure to have keywords in the URL. Matt answered, “It makes sense if a) it’s easy for you to do in your content management system, and b) the keywords are useful and descriptive–definitely don’t overdo it.

taken from, see [searchengineland.com ]
also
[forums.searchenginewatch.com ]
best of luck..

[pageoneresults]

Putting everything at the root is like throwing a bunch of paper into a filing drawer with no folders, tabs, labels, etc.