E-commerce - URLs structure

ehhh, I don't understand why it finishes with .com, maybe you made a mistake? It's .html, right? Or if not, so why?

Hey Mason - Sorry my bad, I meant:

www.example.com/men-clothes/ for the category page
once you click on the product page it becomes: www.example.com/fitted-shirts-black.html

According to your experience, wouldn't it be more beneficial to structure the URL as such:
http://www.example.com/men-clothes/f...rts-black.html ?

The first way is easier and simpler to maintain because the product can become out of stock or can be discontinued at some point in time. In such a case the URL can just be dumped all together.
Also, there are fewer subsections in the URL slug if they keep the directory and the listed product on a separate URL.

From an SEO perspective, it's not really going to matter all that much. If you have the option, I'd rather go without the category folder in the URL because the product page stays autonomous and won't have a bunch of different duplicate reference path URLs (from other categories, sorting, etc.).

Yes, it would give more of an SEO advantage. When you use platforms like Shopify or WordPress, some URLs get discombobulated with however way the system prefers, so if you can organize it better (as well as remove duplicate pages in the background), it's more power to your website searchability and ranking.

Thanks!
I also believe having a clear URL path would give an SEO advantage (not changing the URL structure from the category page to the product)
If I use descriptive product names, I probably will have two times the same keywords in the URL, which might be considered as spammy by Google, what do you think?
E.g:
www.example.com/short-sleeve-shirts for the category page
http://www.example.com/short-sleeve-...s-blue-striped for the product page

Webmasters that rely on Google Organic Traffic should consider the Google's upcoming change to "Link Attributes."

March 01, 2020 the Hint Model goes into effect.

Read More About it on the Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Evolving "nofollow" - new ways to identify the nature of links

Structuring an ecommerce website should be easy right?

Just take all of your product categories, make a page for each, add the products to each one, and you're done...

Well not exactly.

Common issues such as keyword cannibalisation can occur if you don't structure your site properly, which can leave you with lower rankings and ultimately less sales.

Keywords are one of the main ways in which we direct the Google
Bot to our desired page.

When two or more keywords are the same on more than one page
the Google Bot will determine one page (only one) that Google
considers the best match for the searchers query. Search Intent!

Hence, Keyword Cannibalization wherein two or more pages are
populated with the same or similar keywords (phrase or terms)
which forces the Google Bot to determine the one page that is
returned to the searchers query.


The consequence exists that the Google Bot may select a page that
is not our desired page. When that happens the desired page is
devalued by Google. We lose our desired organic traffic to the
desired page and we often lose our desired conversion.

The fix is easy, yet may may be twofold and may not be desirable.

Fix #1. Use 301 Redirects sparingly if you already have multiple
eCommerce pages ranking for the same terms. On mobile devices
too many redirects may confuse the Google Bot.

and/or

Fix #2. Restructure all of the cannibalized (devalued) pages that
are making use of the same or similar keywords, i.e. consolidate
onto one page and only one page. This is desirable if your website
uses the SILO structure.

The take-away is the Google Bot will eventually direct all of the
cannibalized pages aka devalued pages to your desired page.

Please check your htaccess and correct soon

Structuring an ecommerce website should be easy right?

Just take all of your product categories, make a page for each, add the products to each one, and you're done...

Well not exactly.

Common issues such as keyword cannibalisation can occur if you don't structure your site properly, which can leave you with lower rankings and ultimately less sales.

E-commerce URLs as simple, relevant, compelling, and accurate as possible is key to getting both your users and search engines to understand them.

Yes, certainly http://www.example.com/men-clothes/f...irts-black.com is better than www.example.com/fitted-shirts-black.com

Do not use /mens-clothes/ in all the URL's

Make single Category with mens-clothes

then in tat category some sub category - Don't use mens-clothes in sub categories
go with url -
/fitted-shirts-black/
/casual-shirts/
so on

Short answer: no. Because sometimes products can be accessible via multiple categories.

example.com/men-clothes/fitted-shirts-black.com
example.com/fitted-shirts/fitted-shirts-black.com


Creating duplicate content issues. So you'll always want products in the root .