Think you are an SEO pro? POP Quiz

[Brad Gosse]

Found on another forum.



www.domain.com/fruit/apple/apple.html

or

www.domain.com/fruit/apple.html

or

www.domain.com/fruit-apple.html


what is the best for structure for SEO out of the 3 links above?

your focus is apple with fruit being secondary....

[Louise Green]

I would say the last URL structure is best, because it's closest to the home directory.

[bgmacaw]

What matters is that you get more good incoming links with both 'apple' and 'fruit' as the anchors and the rest won't matter.

[jitterbug978]

Id say first or third.

The first repeats the keyword apple which could help.

The last is closest to the home directory.

To be honest I dont think you would even notice a difference once you've got a couple hundred backlinks pointing towards your site. Especially if the rest of your page is optimized well. It may equate to a 2% difference.. maybe.

[Brad Gosse]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

What matters is that you get more good incoming links with both 'apple' and 'fruit' as the anchors and the rest won't matter.

Damn grasshopper. You took the pebble from my hand so quickly lol.

So all things being equal, you and your competitor have the same backlinks and anchor text, which structure wins

[debra]

Originally Posted by Brad Gosse

Damn grasshopper. You took the pebble from my hand so quickly lol.

So all things being equal, you and your competitor have the same backlinks and anchor text, which structure wins

The first one would win.

But...you could gain the advantage by linking from relevant pages.

*notice that I said "pages" not site.

[Red_Virus]

I feel the 2nd one will be best.

[badfun]

semantically number two is the best, so I submit that it would be for seo purposes as well.
brent

[raphaellive1986]

I think it is the last one.

I agree with Lovelylou

Because it is much closer to the home directory.

[Xammy]

Choose #3 . . . search engine will see it as "fruit", "apple", and "fruit apple"

[dave147]

probably the 1st one, even though it's a repeated keyword

[zoobie]

I think is third.

since 1 looks a bit spammy. why repeat "apple" twice?
2nd, well, it is better that the page is closest to the home directory which I agree with lovelyyou so I choose the third or "C" or no.3 whatever you call it.

[kikloo]

Originally Posted by Red_Virus

I feel the 2nd one will be best.

Hi,

I also feel that 2nd one is best.

Thanks.

[Bombora]

Its the first one, you get your KW in an extra time.

[SEOArbiter]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

What matters is that you get more good incoming links with both 'apple' and 'fruit' as the anchors and the rest won't matter.

I agree with bgmacaw. All are okay. The important thing is getting the links pointing specifically to the given URL. Having the keyword in the domain name or URL is just a bonus. So, whatever is easiest to manage for the webmaster I'd go with.

[judelive1986]

First url took me to a page with hosting stuff.

[guzie]

what is the best for structure for SEO out of the 3 links above?

your focus is apple with fruit being secondary....


What is the reason(s) for keeping us in suspense? Why test us? Why don't you just outright tell us? Ok...Number 3 or the last one is my pick.
Paul

[flobaby]

I say #2 because the keyword you're optimizing for doesn't share an extra keyword in the page url and it's closest to the root. Now if #3 was www.domain.com/apple-fruit.htm it would be my first choice because front-loading might negate the extra word. Curious to see the answer.

[raj564]

i havent read the above answers...

it would be the 2nd one. You have "fruit" as a silo. Google would like to see apple.html and bananna.html and orange.html inside that directory....etc.

Charles heflin, should pat me on the back for saying that.

[blur]

Something is telling me all three are equal.

[askloz]

Ok guys, sorry, but you're all wrong.

firstly, having a non-www domain has stronger prominence.

fruit-apple.domain.com/apple/ is much better.

Originally Posted by Brad Gosse

Found on another forum.



www.domain.com/fruit/apple/apple.html

or

www.domain.com/fruit/apple.html

or

www.domain.com/fruit-apple.html


what is the best for structure for SEO out of the 3 links above?

your focus is apple with fruit being secondary....

[paulgl]

Let's see what gives when we search the big G.
Doing a search for fruit apple, no quotes,
After wikipedia, the top ranked one is a site with
domain.edu/blahblah/blahblah/fruits/apple1

Next site up is an article site, no apple or fruit in url.

The next site up is domain.com/apple-fruit

Now let's do a search for apple fruit
After wikipedia, an article site comes up with no apple
or fruit in the domain. The same article mentioned above.

Next site is domain.com/apple-fruit

Site after that is the first site above.

Seems like almost a wash.

The fact that the same article site came up with no keywords
in the url, fruit or apple, just shows the power of articles.

What matters seems to be what you do for SEO as opposed to
words in a url.

Looks like we need a 4th choice domain.com/apple-fruit

But it does look as if choice #1 is a definite loser in my little test.

Paul

[marketseeker]

Originally Posted by Brad Gosse

Damn grasshopper. You took the pebble from my hand so quickly lol.

So all things being equal, you and your competitor have the same backlinks and anchor text, which structure wins

There is no set rule they could both win given the day or time of day or carma or what ever else you want to call it.

[Louise Green]

Ok I've given this some more thought and I think I have the answer..

It depends on what type of site you want to run.

If you want to become an authority site the following could be applied if this site is about.. food:

The longer URL's tell the search spiders (through your naviation structure) that you have an entire category on fruit and subcategories for each type of fruit.

The shorter URL would work better for articles not part of a specific category but have a stronger relation to the main content of the site.

[debra]

Originally Posted by Lovelylou

Ok I've given this some more thought and I think I have the answer..

It depends on what type of site you want to run.

If you want to become an authority site the following could be applied if this site is about.. food:

The longer URL's tell the search spiders (through your naviation structure) that you have an entire category on fruit and subcategories for each type of fruit.

The shorter URL would work better for articles not part of a specific category but have a stronger relation to the main content of the site.

You win! Think: Expansion.

That's exactly true.

When the storms go by...I'll come back and explain "why".

[raj564]

Originally Posted by Lovelylou

It depends on what type of site you want to run.

He just said assume their all the same.
Make them all content sites that have the same quality of content.

Google will favor one over the other.

[mfleisch]

Wow! The feedback here is overwhelming. This one definitely stumps the professor. I'm of the mindset that URL structure is only a small part of rankings. That being said, if all things are equal, I'd go with number two.

#1 does give you any extra lift with the added folder/page.. its' just redundant and could be viewed as duplicate content or spam.

#2 is a pretty standard structure and the cleanest from a URL structure perspective.

#3. I'm not convinced that Google would know how to weight the phrases appropriately. How would it know that one is secondary to the other? It would probably ignore the hyphen and see it as a single phrase.

[shortbusgeek]

I follow the structure of #2 personally. It's easier for me to manage and I believe looks more logical to the user... hopefully being more appealing to click on than the other results if the url is shown. :-) (But yes, I also follow the expansion line of thought as well as being easy for Google to read.)

[uclaboyz]

www.domain.com/fruit-apple.html wins

[doomcashdown]

I'll vote for number 3, because it is at the root folder, together with the index page. Since it contains both of the keywords 'fruit' and 'apple', I guess they will be treated almost equally. However, fruit appears first than apple, but if you optimize the keyword 'apple' in the page's content, then 'apple' will be given more focus.

[sachibhat]

My vote goes for 1st one
coz fruit directory consists of apple sub directory giving information about apple..
but if you are using a single article then second one is best as it is considering fruit as sub directory