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We are going to work on a new project which is a website that contains many details of commercial companies in an area.

People can search for bars, shops, garages and so on.

We are brainstorming on the website structure.

For now we have a structure like:

Main categories

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/

http://www.example.be/sports-relaxation/

http://www.example.be/pets-animals/

...

Sub categories

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/restaurant/

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/lounge/

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/italian-restaurant/

...

Company details

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/restaurant/company-1/

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/restaurant/company-2/

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/restaurant/company-3/

...

But isn't this to long? Also it will contains some keywords more then once.

So another structure that we have in mind is:

Main categories

http://www.example.be/restaurant-tavern-bistro/

Sub categories

http://www.example.be/category/restaurant/

http://www.example.be/category/lounge/

http://www.example.be/category/italian-restaurant/

Company details

http://www.example.be/company/company-1/

http://www.example.be/company/company-2/

http://www.example.be/company/company-3/

What will be the best solution or pro and cons of one structure of another with SEO in mind?

Mivaweb
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  • This is almost the same question structurally where I detail how structure effects performance: http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/74633/well-structured-urls-vs-urls-optimized-for-seo/74639#74639 – closetnoc Oct 20 '16 at 17:07

1 Answers1

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This is too much opinion but I'll answer anyway. You are doing too much description in the URL. A restaurant is a category so no need to prefix it with "category". restaurant-tavern-bistro ... we get it ... don't throw the kitchen sink in there, too. example.be/restaurants, we get it.

But are all tavern's restaurants? Will you be cluttering drink-only taverns in that category, too? And aren't all bistros restaurants?

So, example.com/restaurants is good enough. If a tavern serves food, put it under restaurants and also under bars or taverns.

And don't go with example.be/company/company. See the redundancy? Why not example.be/company/details? Or example.be/restaurant/company/details?

With URLs, you are mainly trying to help search engines find their way around your site. Using these steps help them find the bottom. Most people won't be typing those urls into the address bar so length doesn't always play into it.

With theatre companies I built, one does more than just theatre. They also do radio plays. So theatre.com/theatre/name-of-play and theatre.com/radio/name-of-radio-play. But you can also find the play with theatre.com/name-of-play.

You can also do theatre.com/theatre/play/cast and theatre.com/play/cast-member but this can drive you crazy.

Rob
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  • The reason of restaurant-tavern-bistro was to have a global primary category which contains sub categories restaurant, lounge, italian restaurant, ... because else we will have to many primary categories. – Mivaweb Oct 20 '16 at 14:47
  • Then put those under three different URLs. A restaurant isn't a tavern and a tavern isn't a bistro. – Rob Oct 20 '16 at 14:48
  • Yes I understand that but we only want one category that contains companies that are dealing with food or drinks. Maybe just call it the category food-and-drinks then? – Mivaweb Oct 20 '16 at 14:51
  • That's a common theme and can work – Rob Oct 20 '16 at 14:51
  • Nicely said! Cheers!! – closetnoc Oct 20 '16 at 17:11