This is a much larger topic, but before doing anything drastic like changing your URLs purely to include more descriptive folders in them, consider that we’re seeing URLs in the SERPs less and less, especially on mobile.
They Can Be A Minor Ranking Factor
Again, a small element to consider is that URLs with keywords can have a minor ranking factor.
It’s not something I would advise restructuring a site over, but I would be remiss not to mention it.
They May Be Used As The Anchor Text
It is also important to note that in some instances where URLs are being linked to, rather than using a word or phrase for the anchor text, publishers may just link with the “naked” URL.
If your URL path contains keywords, they may help search engines understand the context of the link. This could give an overview of what the page linked to contains.
Essentially, the URL itself becomes the anchor text.
Reasons Why URL Paths Aren’t Important For Topic Clusters
There are a couple of reasons why page paths aren’t as important as we sometimes think they are.
To Denote Site Hierarchy
There’s often a bit of confusion in the SEO world that website hierarchy = your URL structure.
That is, the folder structure of your site denotes which are the parent pages, which are child pages, and the importance of each. However, it’s really much more nuanced than this.
For all the reasons listed above, having an easy-to-understand folder structure is helpful, but it does not mean that your site cannot denote hierarchy without it.
If we think about how users and search bots navigate a website, it is primarily through links. I would argue that the way the website is linked together is much more indicative of the relationship and hierarchy of the pages.
To Give Context
Some people will argue that URL paths help give context to the content that sits within the pages – that you can easily deduce what the likely content of www.helenspetstore.com/dogs/clothes/shoes/red-winter-shoes-xs is before you click on it.
Absolutely! A readable URL will help give that context. But I don’t believe you get much more context from that URL than you would from www.helenspetstore.com/dogs-red-winter-shoes-xs.
Should You Focus On The Page Path?
Yes. That is when you are creating the website. If you are working from scratch, you should think about the page paths for all of the reasons I listed before.
For Lee’s question about an existing website’s live supporting pages sitting in a different folder from the cluster page, then no.
As long as the internal linking between these pages is robust, and other signals like anchor text and content relevance are there, then it is not worth changing the URLs of existing pages to fit within the “ideal” folder structure.
The Risks Of Changing Your Page Paths
If you decide to make a change to the page paths of your already live, crawled, and indexed pages, remember that there is risk.
Changing the URLs means that Googlebot will need to understand that the new URL has the same content as the old URL and should, therefore, be indexed and ranked instead of it.
It isn’t just a case of implementing a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. 301 redirects are just a canonicalization signal.
They are a suggestion to the search bots that the new URL should be indexed and ranked instead of the old one.
However, if you make mistakes with other indexing and ranking signals, Google might not respect it.
For example, it may take longer for the old URL to fall out of the index if you continue to link to it from your internal navigation system.
Even though users and Googlebot would still end up on the final page in the redirect, the signal is there that the original URL is still important.
Page Paths Are Important, But Consider The Risks Of Making Changes
In summary, a well-foldered website has a lot of benefits to it.
I would always consider the page path when designing a site’s architecture from scratch. It makes life a lot simpler down the line.
It isn’t a major factor in that content’s ability to rank, however. As long as you get the other signals correct, the actual URL path really isn’t that important.
If you are making changes to a significant volume of URLs, or pages that are of particular importance, then consider it a website migration.
Put in all the checks and balances that you would for that project. Check your internal links, update your XML sitemaps, put the redirects in place.
Give Googlebot as much evidence that the new URLs are rank-worthy.
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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal