Changing urls to keywords

[lk125]

I have been reading that Google may give preference to key words (phrases) in the url.

Currently I have most of my pages linked from the root.

I am considering changing one of the urls to the key phrase and then placing it and all related pages in a directory with the same key phrase name.

So basically I would change www.mysite.com/currentname.htm to www.mysite.com/key_phrase/key_phrase.htm.

First off is this advisable? I have been consistent in the top 20-30, but I am trying to crack the top 10.

Secondly if it is would I then set up a 301 redirect?

[stuntdubl]

I'm not sure how successful this would be, or if there are previous threads, but I do know that you lose a page rank point for each subdirectory you use.
i.e.
if root=5
root/dir=4
root/dir/dir=3

[Marcia]

stuntdubl, that's dependent on how the site's linking is done, it's not an arbitrary loss.

Most of the Page Rank is generally concentrated in the index page, so it depends on how many clicks away it is, and how many of the site's pages are linking to an interior page how much of a drop there would be.

If you have www.example.com with 50 product pages in the root all linked to, it'll be divided one way. But if you have 5 directories with 10 pages each it'll be distributed differently.

Some people put everything in the root, others use a navigation scheme like lk125 described, and both can rank well.

[lk125]

Actually I am not so concerned about PR b/c I do not think it is the be-all end-all determination of where you fall in the rankings.

My page is ranked 29th, and it has a PR5. This is the key phrase page itself. My home page is 33rd under the same key phrase page, and it has a PR 6. Also my home page is the 8th ranked paged under this particular key phrase in the Google Directory.

Of all the sites ahead of me, 2 have a PR7, 11 have a PR6, 7 have a PR5, 6 have a PR4, 1 has a PR1 and one page does not link and has not linked for the last 2 months. Of all the sites, I have more inbound links than all but 2 of them.

So basically PR is not my main concern. I am basically wondering if it is worth it to change the url to the key phrase. The only reason I even suggested the directory was b/c I thought it might be beneficial in the rankings to put all of the related pages to this key phrase in the same directory.

And if the url change is the way to go, would I then use the 301 redirect?

[PaulPaul]

I actually have done this already. Just to see how it would do. I physically changed the filenames, directories and the associated links.

I personally dont think it will make a big difference.

[martinibuster]

I recently changed my directory name to keyword-phrase and am awaiting to see how it will do 1 month to two months from now. It was spidered right away by google and the different page is in the database, but I don't think it's ranking just yet.

Anybody around here have an experience to relate?

[andreasfriedrich]

I donīt think it helps very much nowadays. I use rather long urls with a lot of keywords stuffed into them on the site in my profile. This used to help on some German search engines about two years ago when the site was launched. Today I would keep my urls rather short since it can make quite a difference in page size with approx. 70 links per page.