Problem free URL Structure for SEO

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URLs are often used or shown for page links:

Optimized URLs are SEO-friendly, human-readable, and clean or free of cryptic parameters. A good site structure helps avoid content duplication problems and becomes useful for determining KPIs for different types of content on the site.

The URL structure for a site is considered technical SEO on the back end of the site. For non-CMS, (content management systems), it is the directory structure; for CMS the URL structure is part of the CMS setup.

Note1 category pages should not be thin content -- think Organic produce -- freshness branding -- motivational ... These are topical content hubs and focus points for authority, (ranking), on the site, which transfers to the product pages.

User Interface Design

In a perfect world, the user interface aligns with the URL structure. The structure of the site remains evergreen. The content on the pages changes but the work done for search engine optimization continues to produce measurable returns.

Take for example:

In SEO terminology categories, and sections are entities and the products or ideas have a relationship to these categories or sections.

Entity Relationship Model

Category pages become topical content clusters; Where the category contains links and products related to the topic.

Categories need to be unique entities; Blue widgets vs pink widgets are not unique entities ... they are the same widget entity but have a different property and can be detailed on the same page. Two pages with only the color being different would be considered duplicate content. One can search Google for both proposed categories and see if the results are the same or very similar. If a Wikipedia or an encyclopedia has different entries then they are distinct entities.

When the directory structure is planned out for content. It becomes doubtful that content will be duplicated across the site, and the content becomes arranged in a user and search-engine-friendly way which fosters SEO.

Avoid Content Cannibalism

Content cannibalization like market cannibalization happens when new content competes with older content on the same site. Search engines will only show one of the competing pages and it may not be the best page. The older page loses search traffic. Instead of new pages adding to a site's traffic, like what was working at the beginning... the traffic reaches a plateau or the state of disorganization reaches a point where the site is not as usable and traffic declines.

Journalism sites may do this as a matter of course -- most other sites become harmed by producing content in this manner.

Avoid Category Pagination

Pages with the same title and keywords are either near duplicate or they may be cannibalizing other pages.

Here the internal links on page 3 are buried and if it gets indexed in search the products will also be buried ... Instead use entities and unique names for each page for a better user experience and to get all the pages indexed.

Proper pagination is to index the first page and use a canonical (and no indexed), on the additional pages pointing to the first page, but this would leave the product listed on page 3 as orphans.



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