No, they are not even in the top 5 most exciting things on the internet. I imagine that for the majority of people they break into the top 10, but there are still those odd folk who would rather spend time watching a hilarious cat jump into boxes than trawl across the internet studying how large ecommerce sites have their URLs structured.
At this point, any people still reading this blog will probably be looking at their computer screens in a state of bemusement…”But URL structures aren’t exciting. They aren’t exciting at all. I would much rather watch Maru than study URL structures.” Well, you’re right, URL structures are not exciting in any way. That opening paragraph was an attempt to use a linguistic device whereby I lull readers further into a blog with a very dry subject using absurdity. Now you are trapped, and the only way to escape is to finish reading.
URL Structures and SEO
It is not known exactly how much the structure of a URL will have on ranking position, but it is highly likely that Google factor it into their algorithm. Some people will always attempt to have the keyword they are targeting on a page placed in the URL, some would rather use synonyms or “LSI” keywords for fear of over-optimization. Some people will want to use a category base in the URL structure as they feel that it makes it easier for the search engines crawling the site, but other will remove it to make the URL more user-friendly and memorable. There are actually a lot of different variables that need to be accounted for when settling on a URL structure for a website.
Before I look at some real world examples, here’s an illustration to better show how the structure of a websites URL might affect usability for the search engines and the users:
Above is a quick drawing of a fairly standard website with a silo structure – one general category (widgets), two sub-categories (Red Widgets, Blue Widgets) and several pages created for the longtail in each of those two categories.
With this structure, there are really only two paths you can follow to define the URLs:
Option one:
- Widgets.com
- Widets.com/red-widgets
- Widgets.com/red-widgets/buy-red-widgets
- Widgets.com/red-widgets/red-widget-reviews
- Widgets.com/red-widgets/cheap-red-widgets
- Widgets.com/red-widgets/free-red-widgets
- Widgets.com/blue-widgets/
- Widgets.com/blue-widgets/buy-blue-widgets
- Widgets.com/blue-widgets/blue-widget reviews
Etc….
Option Two:
- Widgets.com
- Widets.com/red-widgets
- Widets.com/buy-red-widgets
- Widgets.com/red-widget-reviews
- Widgets.com/cheap-red-widgets
- Widgets.com/free-red-widgets
- Widets.com/blue-widgets
- Widgets.com/buy-blue-widgets
- Widgets.com/blue-widget-reviews
Etc…
As you can see, the only difference between the two options is that in the first one the category base remains in place (Widets.com/red-widgets/buy-red-widgets) and in the second it is removed (Widgets.com/buy-red-widgets).
Some would argue that the first option helps structure the site for the search engine bots, meaning that it is easier to crawl, easier for the bots to establish relevance, and therefore easier to rank for potentially profitable keywords such as ‘buy red widgets’. Others would worry that leaving the ‘red-widget’ category base in the URL would not only make it less user friendly, but it would also cause a lot of duplication issues because of repeated uses of ‘Red Widget’ or ‘Blue Widget’. Again, there is potential to incur an over-optimization penalty as Google continue to wage war on SEOs to promote transparency about what exactly they dislike webmasters doing to their sites.
The example I’ve given is on a very small scale, and obviously as the site increases in size (more pages, more categories, more products etc.) there will be different ramifications on the URL structure and the website heirarchy. Other variables would include the volume of the keyword you are targeting, and the amount of longtails that are available for that main keyword.
If there are lots of longtail keywords that are potentially profitable in your niche, you will most likely want to create dedicated pages for them. These additional pages, and how you decide to structure them within the taxonomy of the site, could determine how you keep your URLs structured.
How do the large ecommerce sites structure URLs?
Let’s have a look at how some of the big sites structure their URLs, and try and make some conclusions about ‘best practices’.
A good place to start is Amazon, probably the biggest online retailer in the world. Their site is considered to be extremely well SEO’d given how well it ranks for hundreds and thousands of keywords, and the amount of pages it has (there are over 1 billion in Google’s index at the time I’m writing this!).
They started life as a bookstore, so let’s see how that part of their site is structured. Clicking on the ‘books’ link from the homepage you will be taken to a link with the following structure:
https://www.amazon.com/books-used-books-textbooks/b/ref=sa_menu_bo7?ie=UTF8&node=283155
I’ve highlighted the important part – the category is ‘books-used-book-textbooks’. On that page, in the sidebar, there is a list of about 30+ subcategories. If I click the link to view the ‘Computer & Technology’ books, this is the next URL I see:
https://www.amazon.com/Computers-Internet-Books/b/ref=sa_menu_bo7?ie=UTF8&node=283155
Instead of keeping the ‘books-used-books-textbooks’ as the parent category, it has substituted it with the sub-category I wanted to view. Another option for them would have been to structure the URL in a way where the parent directory remains in place:
https://www.amazon.com/books-used-books-textbooks/Comupters-Internet-Books/etc.etc.
However, they haven’t done this, so although it might appear logical to place the ‘Computer & Technology’ category as a sub-page of the ‘books-used-books-textbooks’ parent page, Amazon clearly don’t think there is any additional value in doing so.
This is further evidenced by the way Amazon list individual products. One book listed in that category is known as ‘The Clean Coder’, and it has a URL structured like this:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Clean-Coder-Professional-Programmers/dp/0137081073
Again, for many webmasters, because this book falls into the ‘Technology & Computer’ category, it may appear logical to try and incorporate that into the URL. It might end up looking something like this if done that way:
https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Internet-Books/The-Clean-Coder…etc.etc.
But again, they haven’t kept the parent directory in the live URI, which seems to indicate that using a parent directory in the URL structure doesn’t add any SEO value, and therefore it probably isn’t worthwhile keeping the parent page listed in the address unless it is there for usability purposes.
Another huge and successful online retailer that take this approach is Zappos. They have their URLs structured like this:
https://www.zappos.com/shoes – Parent Category
https://www.zappos.com/womens-flats~jN – Sub-category – no parent category
https://www.zappos.com/type-z-lyona-black-leather – Product listing, no parent category
In the interest of fairness, I’ll show another example of an online retailer that keeps a parent category in place when they list their products. In this case it is Comet, and they also adopt an interesting tactic when listing their products. For this example, I’ll show how the URLs are structured when searching their site for a specific Plasma TV:
https://www.comet.co.uk/c/LCD-Plasma-LED-TVs/Plasma-TVs/2114 – Parent category and sub-category remain in the URL.
https://www.comet.co.uk/p/Plasma-TVs/buy-SAMSUNG-PS51E550-Plasma-TV/790044 – Parent category remains, although sub-category is replaced with the product. Slightly different to how Amazon and Zappos do things.
Remember I said Comet also do something interesting with their product listings, well, that is the inclusion of the word ‘buy’ directly in the URL. I haven’t come across many other online stores that adopt this approach.
When you are viewing a product page on an ecommerce website, particularly one belonging to a brand as well known as Comet, it is naturally implied that you can buy the item. This says to me that the inclusion of the word ‘buy’ in the URI is not for usability purposes, but because they want to rank for the keyword ‘buy [item of choice]’. It makes sense because that is a keyword much more likely to convert than a standard product-only keyword (possibly more informational in intent than transactional), but is it effective?
It is outranked by two sites (a couple of Amazon pages), but a common theme between the two sites outranking Comet is that the URL isn’t structured with a category-based parent directory before the product.
Am I saying that if Comet changed their URL structure they would rank better for more of these keywords? Definitely not, I would never make such rash conclusions. However, because they are being outranked by competitors that aren’t necessarily any more or less authoritative than them, it could be potentially influence how well they rank.
Conclusions.
Again, apologies for writing something far too long to hold the average internet users attention span, but if you’ve managed to read all the way down to the conclusion, have yourself a biscuit.
I’m not saying that including a parent category in the URL is bad for search engine optimisation purposes, but it doesn’t appear to add any benefit either. The only evident value in keeping a category-based structure in the URL is if it is there for usability purposes – perhaps to help visitors remember the path they took to find a page. I imagine this would be more appropriate for sites that have a more navigational/informational intent.
Although this has been stupidly long, and it’s more likely that a Goldfish could memorise all the words to Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ than for someone to finish reading this blog, I hope anyone who has finished reading it finds some value here. Below are some questions that I’d be interested to hear your opinion on:
Do you agree or disagree with me? In your experience is using a parent directory in the URL structure beneficial for SEO purposes, can including a parent directory with a keyword mean you risk over-optimising your site, or does it make no difference at all? What actually is the most exciting thing on the internet?
https://t.me/dragon_money_mani/41