Ask HN: Which is better for SEO?

The URL should have little to no effect in the grand scheme of things. Several factors go into their page ranking algorithm, and it is constantly changing.

The content the page is far more important. You might want to ensure the site is usable on mobile and includes content that is relevant in the meta tags when appropriate. You could look into adding microdata (http://schema.org/docs/gs.html) as another means of giving the search crawler pertinent information.

The only way to definetly know if it will be better for SEO is to test it. I would say go for it. If anything it will at least simplify your URL structure and make it easier to navigate.

Remember when you update it, to update your sitemap and (re)submit it to google[0].

[0] - https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Yes, a flatter URL structure will likely improve SEO. I've seen this with our SEO consultants on our site. But URL structure is one aspect. Backlinks and quality content are probably more important. And mobile. If your mobile experience isn't up to par, you could be penalized. And speed. Is your site fast? If not, ya, could be penalized, too. You should have a look at your Google Webmaster Tools account first.

Thanks for all your thoughts. I'll keep investigating - really determined to beat those content farming websites.

I've also noticed that although it's listed in the sitemap, when I ran the main page through a checker, it doesn't seem like the products page is linked to any other page.

At the simple level of SEO that we are discussing here, the thought process should be simple. There is one rule: Do what is best for your users. If you read Google's recommendations for SEO, that is what they tell you. Don't think about how your changes will affect the search engine, think about whether they are better for the user.

So in this case, the second one is much better. I would much rather type the second one into an address bar than the first. I might even be able to remember the second one, if I visited frequently.

If you are going to change your urls, I would also recommend losing the .html file extension and serving the page dynamically. so it is just toys/lego-star-wars Such a url can transition easily whenever you make technical changes to your framework.

Finally, you want to be super careful about changing any URLs. I would minimize the number of changes you make (it will always set you back) and make sure you have 301s from the old to new.

Speaking of tracking, testing, and measuring, keep in mind that traffic--not rankings are your end goal. I would use the ranking stats provided by google wmt as a rough indicator, but focus much much much much more closely on your traffic.

Do you rank the same way in Bing?

How are these scraped websites charging you for leads - do you have an official affiliate program?

If it is not your official affiliate program, then you need to stop paying for the leads. You probably have an enterprising black hat who is getting his site ranked with your content purely to sell traffic to you. Disabling the reward mechanism would help stop this

If it is an official affiliate program, then you should set the following rules for your program.

1. No content scraping allowed. Let the affiliates create their own content that adds value to the potential customers.

2. All affiliate sites should link directly to your website (i.e. traffic is not sent via javascript or any other method) Doing this will ensure that Google know which is the main website and which are affiliates.

3. No bidding on your keywords related to your brand.

[edited for formatting]

Content, content, content. Did I say content? Interesting content, unique descriptions of products and speed, speed, speed. After that you go and split test the hell out of it. Buy adwords and see which version/s perform best.

That url by itself will not get you noticable improvement but it's still worth it in my opinion. Changing "myproducts" to "toys" will certainly help. If you are just removing numbers from url - not so much.

Oh, and get a list going. Set it up so that users receive targeted offers. You say you are Data Analyst so that shouldn't be an issue.