Shorter/More relevant URL = better serps?

[xpro]

Let's assume we are targeting the following keywords

"free teeth whitening trial"

and we have the two different URLs with nothing else being different about the two pages.

1. http://example.com/products/free-teeth-whitening-trial
2. http://example.com/free-teeth-whitening-trial

Would the page with URL 2 rank higher than page 1? Or would it make no difference?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:17 pm (utc) on Aug 24, 2019]
[edit reason] Change "mysite.com" to "example.com". This delinks url and displays full url. [/edit]

[not2easy]

Is this a WordPress site so that both pages are the same with the /category/ taxonomy the only difference? If so, then it makes no difference but you want to be sure to choose one or the other as canonical and not list the other version on your sitemaps.

[xpro]

It's not a Wordpress. It's custom coded and I'm trying to pick the one that would rank better.

[mack]

I am sceptical if ranking these days still looks at the URL (As much as it once did). There are other advantages. Say you have your main keyword page located within the "products" folder. It would be nice and easy to use breadcrumbs so allow people to quickly backtrack through the site structure.

Home > Products > Key Word Product

Mack.

[xpro]

Both versions will have the same breadcrumbs, but I am guessing URL 2 may have a tiny bit more advantage in rankings?

[lucy24]

Cold-blooded suggestion: Take the time you were planning to spend agonizing over the precise details of URL structure, and instead devote that time to making the best possible page.

[xpro]

The page can be improved at any stage, but the URL structure is very important as Google will index them and I will get backlinks to them. I want to have the best URL structure before going live.

[tangor]

URL keywords don't mean anything these days ... as part of the (now apparently) 200+ signals used by g, these efforts rate mighty low. And urls with "free" in them probably rank lower than most.

YMMV

I personally use the shortest url possible for everything.

[lucy24]

the URL structure is very important as Google will index them and I will get backlinks to them

If you think you will accumulate masses of backlinks to a page based purely on the words in its URL, and that indexing is wholly independent of page content, you have been sadly misinformed.

[RedBar]

The page can be improved at any stage,

Hmmm ... You should launch with your best possible page and then improve, if possible, months/years down the line. Never launch with an "it'll do for now" type of page unless it's a future job creation scheme!

If you expect to be #1 and the authority then do it from the very beginning.

And I always do as tangor says, use the shortest and most relevant url possible.

[aristotle]

It may depend on how big the site is. Short URLs are easier to implement on a small site.

At any rate, in my opinion shorter URLs are generally better, not just for rankings but for other reasons as well.

[xpro]

I will go with the shorter URL, it looks like there is no real benefit of having "products" in the URL

[phranque]

what is on this page?
http://example.com/products/

[xpro]

There is nothing on that page. It was only in the URL

[phranque]

There is nothing on that page. It was only in the URL

In my opinion it should not be in the URL in that case.

[aristotle]

Sometimes people who link to your site will use the URL as the anchor text. In this case a short URL containing one keyword can make a good anchor text, and possibly help improve your google rankings.

Also, the URL is displayed in google's search results, and searchers might be more likely to click when the URL is short. As a result, you could get more visitors and more exposure for your site, which increases the chances of attracting backlinks.

So there are ways in which a shorter URL can indirectly improve your google rankings.

[Robert Charlton]

Probably the first url is better, but when we get down to the details, it becomes a very long discussion, and occasionally a contentious one. Shorter or longer are not the only factors, and the ranking effects of "keywords" in a url are miniscule, though they might help click-throughs. In your question the /products/ directory shouldn't make any difference, but it might lead to confusion. phranque's answer is to the point here.

I'm thinking that your concern may also have to do with directory levels from home.

Essentially, note that nav structure is not the same as url structure. There's much more to it than length. How do you handle hierarchy with those short urls? Linking everything from home does not scale.

I'm in the process of running out the door, but for now, there's another recent thread on the subject of urls, in which I posted some references and made some comments that might get you thinking in helpful direction.

There is a way, but it's not what's generally supposed. No time to repeat what I posted now, but please check my Aug 16, 2019 answer in this thread...

URL: User-friendly, keyword-optimized, or both?
Aug 15, 2019
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4960057.htm [webmasterworld.com]

I suggest reading all of the references included in both threads I cite in the above thread, which is a lot. If it's not clear from my posts in those threads, I favor the approach that g1smd suggests. Here's my summation, from one of my posts, that should introduce some of the key factors you need to think about...

Do not construct long urls to include your "keywords". It is a mistake that will result in a very inflexible site, with all kinds of dupe content problems, and will not help in ranking.

[aristotle]

I would bet that a keyword in the URL can improve the CTR from the search results. Google displays the URL in the results, and many searchers look at it when deciding whether to click a result.

A higher CTR brings more visitors, and this improves the chance for the site to attract backlinks.

[tangor]

One wonders if the value of keyword is

In the url or

In the page title/filename

I opt for the latter, not the former.