How much of a difference does the number of levels in the URL make?
Does ‘www.domain.com/keyword’
give much higher rankings on ‘keyword’ than www.domain.com/blabla/blabla/keyword?
Monique, The Netherlands
source
How much of a difference does the number of levels in the URL make?
Does ‘www.domain.com/keyword’
give much higher rankings on ‘keyword’ than www.domain.com/blabla/blabla/keyword?
Monique, The Netherlands
source
Really so helpful thank you for amazing video
Is this relevant today, 5.5 years later?
Very important to know that! I was worrying if all my long hierarchical URLs in my book store will get a bad rank in Google. Now it's really good to have Google being so transparent and instructive about things that matter to all of us internet publishers!
Hello thank you very much for answering this question, I understand the video, seo department today my company tells me as a developer this changed in 2013, say it is a record error.
Thank You Matt ..always straight forward advice
By Google
@Indurios Because like it or not, how you build your site matters a lot, maybe just as much as the all hailed "content, content, content" expression because if your site is not found (using Google's algos) then your content is not seen by enough for it to matter. (read: Big Billboard in my BackYard).
Great, thanks for the information.
MC did not understand well.. he is not about PR.
Actually if you have major keyword in the URL , it is good. But not too longtail URL.
Hope it helps.
The question is why you have the keyword so deep in your site architecture. In most cases this means the page is also deep in your menu structure and thats why -without external links- the PageRank and ranking can still be lower. So the lowering effect is indirect due to site navigation structures.
@dz1ncha Spot on! Matt Cutts talks about this in another recent video. Use "-" as a separator. Never underscore "_" which Google bot interprets it as nothing and joins your keywords together which may create a different meaning to your page's content. Eg I aim for thsi result: "keyword1 keyword 2" using "-" in urls instead of "keyword1keyword2" as a result of using "_".
@alternatereality85 or when I say precise *answers* to questions like this – what I really should say is precise *questions* for Matt to answer hehe. For me personally, I think these short videos from Matt are a really great idea and long may they continue, very helpful and good pointers in the right direction at the very least for many folk in what is a fast evolving, ever changing industry thats hard to keep up with every aspect even if you spend almost every waking hour trying to.
@SEOAly Ah righty, I hear you, and agree it would be nice to have precise answers to questions like this. However, I don't imagine the ambiguity from Matt or any other Google search engineers will change at any time in the near future if at all though. I guess they can't give too much away in terms of their algorithm as far as search competitors go, and because they are leaving themselves wide open to black hat abuse, which I imagine might be a key reason for the ambiguity.
@HolidayNova You should use "-" to separate words in the url.
Dude, cut that hair, you look better without it – just like me 😉
Matt did answer the question really well !!! thanks!
@HolidayNova
Should I use _ or / ??
or it doesn't matter, it's all about keywords … if I have longer directories I guess that's just longer tail keywords. Or does google treat only look at the last directory for key work and use the other directories for some organizational assessment?
@SEOAly My guess is that the "Not a major factor…" comment is Matt saying 'look its basically ok as long is its within reason.' If someone buries files, hmmm let's just say as a nice round number, 10+ directory levels deep, and those directories are all extensively keyword rich, then its probably going to trip something or raise an electronic eyebrow so to speak. on one of my sites, its logical for the architecture to go 5 levels deep, but I personally wouldn't want to go much further.
I have gone over this topic with my developers lately and have asked them do SEO with less levels and put in – … I don't know if I should have done or most importantly if it's easier for people to read? we can also put in long tail keywords in the url.
Should I use _ or / ?? does it make a difference?
holidaynova….croatia/dubrovnik/radisson-blu_hotel_delux-room_en
Brilliant to have that confirmed, thanks!
Matt i think your answer was too simple and too literal. you need to read between the lines. People dont know all the jargon that we use and often times dont know how to ask what they mean.