Are multiple url segments bad for SEO?

Marketing
1

I am moving over my client’s website from modx cms to expression engine. As a consequence, the url will change from

www.company-name.com/service-name

to

www.company-name.com/services/view/service-name

Please note that only two more segments are being added, nothing else is changing. This is required by EE cms to parse template tags.

What consequence will this have on this company’s search engine rankings?

2

You need to use a ‘301 redirect’ to ensure that the old URLs simply go straight to the new ones. If the “services/view/” part of the URL is always going to be the same, you can use mod_rewrite to achieve that, but if “services” is going to change for different URLs, you might need to write them all out individually.

In terms of the SEO of the URL, it really doesn’t matter. Google doesn’t care what format your URL takes, as long as it’s consistent and your navigation allows spiders to easily find their way around the site.

3

Thanks Stevie. I can also add canonical urls to each template to avoid confusing google with duplicate content issues. Do you think that will help too?

4

I think it will. The more you do to redirect everything, the better.

5

Also, try to add the sitemap for the website giving the proper structure of the site. With the redirect in effect the page rank and traffic of the existing page will shift to the new page too.

6

Jameer, the new sitemap is going to reflect an altered slightly new content architecture. Will this affect page rank and traffic? All older pages will be there but they will be present in a different place on the new design.

7