Best URL format for Articles?

Because my website is growing, I am looking to break up my website into several Sections like this…

http://local.debbie/finance/
http://local.debbie/operations/
http://local.debbie/management/
http://local.debbie/marketing/
http://local.debbie/entrepreneur/

Each of these URLs would take you to an “index.php” page which would provide a listing of Articles for that Section.

So far so good.

Now my question…

Currently I have all of my Articles listed here…

http://local.debbie/articles/

And the format of my Articles looks like…

http://local.debbie/articles/postage-meters-can-save-you-money
http://local.debbie/articles/consider-becoming-an-s-corporation

Once I add the new Sections as described above, I am debating on which “Pretty URL” would be best for SEO purposes?!

Here are some different approaches…

Option #1:
http://local.debbie/finance/postage-meters-can-save-you-money

Option #2:
http://local.debbie/articles/finance/postage-meters-can-save-you-money

Option #3:
http://local.debbie/finance/articles/postage-meters-can-save-you-money

Option #4: (current)
http://local.debbie/articles/postage-meters-can-save-you-money

My goal is to have a “Pretty URL” which is both intuitive for Users, and which will help search engines find and index my Articles and ultimately increase my SEO.

What do you think??

Thanks,

Debbie

Typically the shorter the URL the better. If I had a choice I would go with option #1.

Although, keywords in the URL help, the benefit they provide is much less than it used to be, so I would focus on creating a URL that can be easily remembered and like you said reflects the structure of the site and makes sense to a user.

As per your goal, I would suggest you to go with option #2, its because the URL is intuitive, categorized and of course as per the SEO tactics which help you in increasing your ranking.

By, article : user would be clear from the URL,
by Finance : user will get the clarity on sector,
rest is your article topic which will be their for reference topic.

It would depend on what your site basically provides. If it provides only the articles then you need not have the articles category and therefore you could go with option #1. In case your site has something more than articles in finance, then you could possibly go with option #2. So it depends on how do you create your information architecture and how do you lay your priorities.

I agree, but to play devil’s advocate, would it be confusing if I am mixing Articles and other things (e.g. Surveys, Charts, etc) under the “Finance” section.

That is, is it good enough to have a “Finance” bucket, and place everything related to that section under it directly, or do I need delineation like this…

http://local.debbie/finance/
http://local.debbie/finance/articles/
http://local.debbie/finance/charts/
http://local.debbie/finance/surveys/

Thanks,

Debbie

Okay, but don’t you think it would be confusing for a user to go from the Finance index (i.e. listing of Finance Articles) here…

http://local.debbie/finance/

To an Article on Finance here…

http://local.debbie/articles/finance/postage-meters-can-save-you-money

To me, I’d be like, “Why did I just hop from the ‘Finance’ section to the ‘Article’ section??”

Follow me?!

Debbie

Wouldn’t Option #3 be better since it keeps “articles” subordinate to the more important concept of “finance” which is the section?

Debbie

Perhaps yes. But then if your site is all about the articles, then “articles” cannot be the subordinate category. In that case you would have to use finance as the subordinate. If otherwise, articles can be the subordinate. I would rather suggest that you ignore the articles category unless until you something else to put up in “finance” category.

To start with, almost all content on my site will be articles, but my intent is to have other forms of content, e.g. Interviews, Case-Studies, Surveys/Survey Results, Charts, Bios, Top-10 Lists, Company Rankings, etc.

That is why I am thinking that I want the main Section in my Top Menu to follow my domain like…

http://local.debbie/finance
http://local.debbie/accounting
http://local.debbie/marketing
http://local.debbie/technology
http://local.debbie/entrepreneur

So you are saying I should just having something like this…

http://local.debbie/finance

…and put my Articles under that like this…

http://local.debbie/finance/postage-meters-can-save-you-money

…until I would have enough other content to justify doing this…

http://local.debbie/finance/articles
http://local.debbie/finance/interviews
http://local.debbie/finance/case-studies
http://local.debbie/finance/surveys
http://local.debbie/finance/rankings

Is that correct?

Thanks,

Debbie

Its better to have different sections as the main root and articles as the subroot that would do it for you i.e. [noparse]http://local.debbie/finance/articles[/noparse]

Debbie, thanks for posting…

Actually, there are two point of views. One is search engine point of view and the other is user point of view.

Search engines are almost tracking the user point of view sort of options and making the search user friendly. So, when an article is under the category “Finance” it is good to have the following format:

domain.com/finance/article-title or domain.com/finance/article/article-title

I would suggest selecting any one of the above formats. To be precise if you want to let users know that the section is from the category Finance and type Article, then go with the second type. If not just mention the category and then the article title.