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We all know that it is good to have lots of quality content on pages.
But, we also know that themes are good, and that if you have a properly themed site that it can be beneficial to have a index -> sub page -> sub page or content.
This draws up the question of whether it is better to have:
1) the index page -> sub-index -> content page
2) the index page -> sub-index -> content page1, content page2, contentpage3, etc.
The thing is that with option #2 you are going to have some more pages that are on topic but a smaller.
With the first option the pages will still be on theme, but will be larger.
What to do, What to do........
With a smaller site (option 1) you are keeping the surfer's attention without an unneccessary number of clicks.
I'd prefer to go for option 2 where practical.
Options 2 with 2 twists added:
1) I like separate domains for one or two of the primary sub-indices, particulary if they can be made to stand alone as a topic in the overall theme of the site network.
2) Small, numerous, on-topic pages seem to work best for me overall, but I do alter the mix by including large, text-heavy (1500 words) articles. By number, these represent only 2% of the pages, though they may account for 30% of the total site word count. (I'm going for authority hub status.)
However i am struggling for content if i get down to kw's under five per page.
i.e - motor = kw / dosen't actually mean anything and certainly would'nt be searched for in the context's that the word and/or concept can be implied to mean or be.
so i add, servo, to make 'servo motor' this is closer though still vague as it dose'nt represent a manufacturer of it/ nor what the servo motor does, how big it is, what current feed it is, polarity it has, and so on.
I find, that with certain products, i can get quite close to specifics of the item, but never actually to a singular kw/ or even keyphrase, as the the possibilities of queries in the arena, i'm involved in is staggering.
It's got me thinking though, how close i could get to a singular kw' as it would expand a relatively small site to a considerable size. Allowing for more optimaization towards differing engine's.
1) Builds alot more content....site ends up being larger than thought of
2) site is filled with solid content
3) makes optimizing for each section much easier as you can break it down and get into specifics.
4) leaves the search engines alot of room to crawl around when they send their little robots to the site
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I was wondering about the second opinion
is it the same as:
www.blah.com/blaf/keyword1, keyword2
That is just an example or have I missed something here?
Take Care
Ove
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You make a very good point and you are thinking correctly with your example, but you are speaking about something different.
What we were referring to is the depth of the site, or how many layers it has. We were also discussing if it is better to have one large page with all of the content on it, or if it was better to have numerous smaller pages that are all related and linked.
I believe the general concensus, which I agree with, is that the second option is the better way to go.
Your question deals with directory structures and the correct naming conventions for them. This can be a benefical factor for your website if used correctly and if it uses a proper naming convention.
(edited by: agerhart at 1:59 pm (utc) on Jan. 9, 2002)
I think that if you use both, with a proper naming convention, it can be even more beneficial.
Keyword = web design
[webdesign.blah.com...]
Man, was I disappointed when I clicked on this...
Then of course, you get into the hyphen vs. underscore argument, and could do this:
[webdesign.blah.com...]
or:
[web-design.blah.com...] (but that one might be going a wee bit far with the whole idea. :) )
I think basically, if your domain name contains your major keywords, in a format that makes sense to the searcher, you're doing yourself a favor... not only in potential search engine ranking, but in click through numbers on the search engines.
[webdesign.blah.com...] is going to look more appealing/logical to click on than [design.blah.com...]
blah.com
web-design.blah.com
web-design.blah.com/graphics
web-design.com/copy
web-design.blah.com/programming
marketing.blah.com
marketing.blah.com/banners
marketing.blah.com/email
marketing.blah.com/search-engines
The individual content pages would look like
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/index.html, positioning.html, reporting.html, etc.
web-design.blah.com/programming/index.html, perl.html, php.html, etc.
repeating the theme of the subdomain as your first subdirectory just adds an unecessary depth level that I've personally never found to be beneficial.
I'm just building my own web site and have an additional question on this thread.
Taking the going example of blah.com, what (if any) would the preference be between:
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/positioning.html
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/positioning/index.html
Assume 'positioning' is a KW. Do SEs assign a different ranking finding it as a directory name or as a page name?
In the second case, the depth of the actual page would increase. Is there a maximum depth one shouldn't exceed?
Welcome to WebmasterWorld
>>Taking the going example of blah.com, what (if any) would the preference be between:
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/positioning.html
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/positioning/index.html
For me, it would depend on the amount of positioning content. If you had several pages, then the second would probably be the best choice. If, on the other hand, you only had a single page, I'd go with the first option.
Page depth does have a negative impact if you're trying to compete for fairly competitive terms. If you have a lot of content, and you build a decending tree type structure, then you need to make sure that the content that is deeper in the struture is targeting more percise, and less competitive search terms.
A twist on the idea that I've found to work quite well even if you have a lot of content is to pull your subdirectory index pages out and place them top level and then link off of them into the corresponding directory.
Using your example, the page you would use for your positioning home page would be
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/positioning.html
Additional positioning pages would be located in
marketing.blah.com/search-engines/positioning/
If you do set it up like that, you just need to remeber to put a blank indext page in the directory so people can't view ALL THE CONTENTS.
Many thanks for the info.
Taking your point to the extreme, would it make sense to put all my pages in the root directory (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th level pages).
e.g. blah.com/search-engines.html
blah.com/positioning.html
blah.com/positioning_with_google.html
etc...
(Assuming I can live with the development issues)
This would mean that my high value pages (level 4) are as high up as possible.
However, would this cause problems when the SEs create my theme pyramid? When the SEs look through the site, would they take into account the directory structure, or just the link structure?
Determining how many levels you will have and whether or not too dump all the pages in the root depends on the amount of pages that you have.
Let's say that you want to have 5 categories: used cars, new cars, chevy cars, honda cars, and ford cars. If you only have under 5 pages for each of the categories than I would suggest that you do not put them into seperate categories or a deeper level. On the other hand, if you have a larger number of pages for each category than you could go forward with following the categories:
- blah.com/used_cars/
- blah.com/new_cars/
- blah.com/chevy_cars/
- blah.com/handa_cars/
- blah.com/ford_cars/
Many thanks for the reply. That sounds a very good approach. As most of my subdirectories contain less than 5 pages (2 on average), I'll be moving all the stuff up a few levels.
I just wonder if you could confirm my reservation with regards to how search engine's create my site theme. I looked through the columns on this site re. theme based SEs and site pyramids, and I'm just a bit worried that if I drop all of my pages (about 40) in the root, SEs wont be able to construct my 4 level pyramid (my target pages are at level 4, so that's why I'm hoping to move them up as high as possible).
One could construct the pyramid by following the links, but obviously not by following a directory structure. How do SEs compartmentalise the site and construct it?
