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Which would be better to SERP's?
ht*p://www.mysite.com/products/manufacturer/partnumber.html
ht*p://www.mysite.com/manufacturer/partnumber.html
ht*p://www.mysite.com/manufacturer_partnumber.html
Thanks in advance for your help!
[edited by: caveman at 4:26 pm (utc) on April 20, 2006]
[edit reason] Delinked links. [/edit]
However I've seen data that generally, the further down in a site a page is, the less likely it is to rank well.
Why? Because deeper pages get fewer links and link popularity, so they are not as important overall, from a SE's point of view.
Still if a page is for a very specific topic, e.g., "dark blue, extra small, inverted widgets," then whether or not it ranks for a search on "dark blue, extra small, inverted widgets" depends on the make-up of the page, links to the page, and other algo related factors that in total lead to a scoring of the page, relative to other pages that might also be good resullt pages for a the query "dark blue, extra small, inverted widgets".
The reason generally that very deep pages tend to rank less well, or perhaps I should have said, get less traffic, is because, generally:
1) Deep pages are more specific and therefore tend to grab only very specific subsets of larger searches, and,
2) Deep pages tend to be at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to getting links, link pop, and PR (in G's case). But that should not be surprising to anyone.
The point of using the "dark blue, extra small, inverted widgets" example is that that page could indeed be very deep and rank exceptionally well for a search on "dark blue, extra small, inverted widgets" ... consider the following site structure:
widgets.com/
widgets.com/inverted-widgets/
widgets.com/inverted-widgets/small/
widgets.com/inverted-widgets/small/blue/
This is just one of numerous ways the above site might be organized. Specific hierarchical organization will depend upon, perhaps, some combination of search volume hieracrhies, general product popularity, logic and common sense, and other factors specific to this widget seller and the widget category.
You might hope and expect to rank the homepage, widgets.com/ for general one and two word searches about "widgets," the inverted-widgets/ main page for searches on "inverted widgets," the inverted-widgets/small/ main page for searches on "small inverted widgets," and so on.
The main page for inverted-widgets/small/blue/ will in all likelihood not rank well at all for general searches on "widgets" but that is not the purpose of that deep page, from an SEO standpoint. The purpose of the deep page inverted-widgets/small/blue/ from an SEO standpoint is to capture searches for phrases like:
"small blue inverted widgets"
"buy small inverted widgets blue"
"information on small inverted blue widget"
...etc...
So on searches like those above, will the inverted-widgets/small/blue/ rank well?
As noted above, it will rank well, or not well, depending up a host of factors that most in here already know: page contents and make-up (title, text, proximity, kw use, etc), internal linking structure and anchor text, external links and anchor text, quality and contents of linking pages, and so on ... all diced and sliced according to the algo(s) of the moment.
And of course this doesn't occur in a vacuum. The page will rank well, or not, not just based on its own score, but on its score relative to all the other pages that might make good results in a set of SERP's ... and most of those other pages are also likely to be deep pages ... on other sites.
:)
Website Directory Depth
How deep should my site go?
It's really about linking structure, not directory structure. If your linking structure follows the directory structure... which is most often the case... with the most general phrases at the top, and the longer and/or more specific phrases deeper down in internal pages, then everything caveman says applies.
But if you put some links to deep pages, say on your home page, you've skewed this entirely... regardless of what the directory structure is.
But if you put some links to deep pages, say on your home page, you've skewed this entirely...
A PS to clarify what I meant by "this" in the above. I'm not talking about the hierarchical targeting and the organizational structure... caveman's got those nailed. I'm talking about PageRank distribution... and about a tiny but possibly important difference. The hierarchical structure that distributes PR is independent of the directory structure, and it is dependent on how you link your pages.
Assuming that most links to a site come in to the default home page, the linking hierarchy is organized in a pyramid like structure around clicks away from that page. It generally parallels how the directories are organized, particularly on the kind of site that wfernley is describing, but it doesn't have to be parallel.
You could conceivably have all your pages in the root directory. Depending on your naming conventions, it might be messier to organize, but you could still build the same kind of pyramid linking hierarchy.
And, if you short circuit this structure and link directly from a page high up in your pyramid to a page several levels down, you can manipulate pages or sections within the hierarchy. Note the home page of DMOZ and how certain subcategories are deep linked.
Do SERP's (mainly Google) take into account how many directories deep a page is in the site?
So, in answer to the original post, I'd say no, but it generally seems as if it does.
For more about PR distribution in this hierarchical "pyramid," take a look at this classic post...
Search Engine Theme Pyramids and Google
Optimising the Pyramid for PageRank
[webmasterworld.com...]
I guess I should just keep what I have now.
I have been finding a lot of my deep pages are getting de-indexed. I bet this does have to do with linking structure. I try to help out from the homepage to get these new deep pages ranked by having a "Latest Added Products" box. This shows the last 5 products added to my database with links to the product_details.html page. This gets them initially ranked but considering there aren't many other links I think they get de-indexed. For example, this is how a SE would get to them:
homepage -> manufacturer list -> product list -> product
To many clicks IMO.
I remember reading that post a while ago about the pyramid. I didn't really understand it at the start but that was when I was just starting up in SEO. I will have to read it again.
homepage -> manufacturer list -> product list -> product
Too many clicks IMO.
I agree about too many clicks, unless you have a high PR site. For a given amount of PR in a linking structure, though, you can only go so wide or so deep. Adding 100 links to your home page is also not the answer. The pyramid structure is the logical way to go, for reasons that caveman and ciml describe. You can then make some prudent adjustments with a limited number of deep links.
But your temporary new products links from the home page are just that... temporary.
I have been finding a lot of my deep pages are getting de-indexed.
Are they getting de-indexed or simply not ranking. If de-indexed, they may not have enough unique content and might be getting dropped as dupes. Ditto if they substantially dupe content that you've gotten from elsewhere.
I actually have a ton of links on my homepage as well. I did a quick density check and it looks like I have 68 internal links on my homepage and 5 external (with nofollows of course)
Perhaps I should have less links on my homepage and develope my secondary pages better - try and follow the pyramid style.
Any thoughts?
Why nofollows, just out of curiosity?
They are placed on 5 news events that are updated throughout the day.
The could be de-indexed because of dupe content considering they contain 500 word descriptions that are taken off the manufacturers website.
It's extremely likely that this would cause de-indexing.
I actually have a ton of links on my homepage as well. I did a quick density check and it looks like I have 68 internal links on my homepage and 5 external (with nofollows of course)
I'd consider cutting down on the 68 internal links, unless you have lots of PageRank. Go to the pyramid structure and remove the nofollows from those external links (assuming, ie, that those sites are not in bad neighborhoods and that you do trust them).
Perhaps I should have less links on my homepage and develope my secondary pages better - try and follow the pyramid style.
Sounds like a good start.
Any thoughts?
If your site is as big as it sounds, you should try to get a lot of good quality inbounds as well. It will be easier if your site has content that is actually worth linking to.
I will remove the nofollow links.
I want to cut down on the links on the homepage but it is all in my sidebar navigation. My site is very large and has 24,200 pages listed in Google (way over top considering I only have about 3k to 4k).
How many clicks should it take to get to my product pages? I dont know how else I can make it less than 5:
homepage -> manufacturer listing -> manufacturer -> product listing -> product
Anybody have any ideas?
My PR is low - only being 4 - and I am working on getting links.
