Updated:
by Wayne Smith
In the early days of SEO, search engines evaluated URL structures to better understand how websites organized their content. When related pages were grouped under a parent topic, it helped search engines recognize those relationships. This Search engine friendly structure signaled that the pages were part of a broader subject, improving their ability to rank well.
- Main Folder – Brand Name
- About
- Author
- Grocery
- Produce
- Vegetables
- Corn
- Tomato
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- What's on Sale
- Produce
- About
When the full URL is visible in the browser, it also gives visitors helpful clues that more related content is available -- improving both navigation and user experience.
Speculative Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Requests
Some modern AI-driven search systems generate answers by issuing speculative RAG requests—queries that retrieve content the model believes may help complete an answer. These systems evaluate site structure, entity definitions, internal linking, and related content paths to determine where relevant information is most likely to be found. Clean URLs, breadcrumb trails, and well-modeled schema all influence how effectively RAG systems can discover and interpret your content.
For example, consider a site that sells cell phones. If a user asks, “What cell phones does company-name provide with high-definition cameras?” and the layered AI system does not already have the answer, it may speculate about which page to retrieve. If T-Mobile lists its phones under the URL /phones/, the system may attempt to fetch information from company-name.com/phones/ to assemble the answer.
Geotargeted visibility may increase when URL paths are uniform, structurally predictable, and based on entities rather than arbitrary naming conventions. Consistent URL patterns help both search engines and RAG systems identify the correct country, region, or market-specific content during retrieval.
Breadcrumbs Evolved to Show Site Structure on the Page
Breadcrumbs have grown into a useful way to visually show how a website is structured, directly on the page. While they don’t replace the need for an SEO-friendly URL structure, they help make the relationships between pages clearer -- for both users and search engines. Used together, clean URLs and breadcrumbs are considered SEO best practices.
Why Use ARIA and Schema Breadcrumbs – with Examples
When breadcrumb schema is added, search engines often display the breadcrumb trail instead of the full URL in search results. However, they usually show only one path. This means neither breadcrumbs nor URLs alone can fully capture more complex relationships between content.
Schema Has Evolved to Support More Complex Structures
Traditional breadcrumbs and URL structures are effective for displaying simple page hierarchies, but they can fall short when trying to represent more complex relationships between content. To address this, Schema.org offers properties like "isPartOf" and "hasPart" that define how different pieces of content are connected within a larger context. For example, a blog post might indicate that it "isPartOf" a series, while the series page can show it "hasPart" multiple related posts. This helps search engines understand the full structure of your content -- beyond what's reflected in the URL.
Other schema properties, such as "mentions" and "citation," help you highlight important connections to other topics or sources. "Mentions" shows that your content refers to a specific idea, concept, or entity, while "citation" links to an external source, such as a supporting article or publication. These relationships can add context, authority, and relevance to your content, improving how search engines evaluate it.
Schema: Content Structure and Supplemental Content -- with Examples
All of these schema properties -- 'isPartOf,' 'hasPart,' 'mentions,' and 'citation' -- can reference a creative work. This helps define each entity more precisely, giving search engines and AI systems a clearer understanding of the content's depth, intent, and relevance.
Testing indicates that pages with higher relevance, beyond just the minimum, tend to rank better. While some may view this as an anomaly, the consistent performance of such pages suggests a positive correlation between content depth and search engine rankings.