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Category naming

by Donhinio
3 replies
Hello,

When it comes to category naming, how important is including keywords in the name?

Say, purely as an example, I am running an Elvis ecommerce site, what difference would naming my categories be from:
Elvis Artwork (example url: elvisshoppingsite.co/elvis-artwork/picture)
Elvis Clothing
Elvis Records
Elvis Tours Memorabilia

Compared to:
Artwork (example url: elvisshoppingsite.co/artwork/picture)
Clothing
Records
Tours Memorabilia

From a user perspective, they already know they are on an Elvis website so the Elvis pre-fix does not provide the best experience, but does it add value from an SEO perspective?

Many thanks for any advice!
#category #naming
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  • Profile picture of the author qwikaddotcom
    Not an expert advice, but it looks to me that, even though the search engines are trying to get rid of their dependence on keywords in URLs, they are still ranking keyword containing URLs higher than non-keyword URLs. I've seen it happen again and again. I would use URLs (including file / folder extensions) that have keywords in them, until I know the search engines are done away with that practice.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    It is always going to be more beneficial to have the keywords in the category name - not necessarily because of the URL but because of the internal anchor text within navigation and textual links.

    Sometimes, it is not possible because it clutters up the navigation bar - especially the top-navigation bar. In that case, you may have to shorten it to just clothing, records, etc. In that case, you should at least have the main H1 for the category page with the keywords and any time you do link to the category from other pages, you should use keyword anchor text.
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    If you were optimizing back in 2010, the Elvis (KEYWORD HERE) approach would work

    But in 2020, keep in mind that Google uses AI to detect CONTEXT

    Focus more on content quality and context than "hard signals" - the latter seems too much like keyword stuffing

    Not a good look
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