Importance of Site Architecture
12th November 2007
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What is Information Architecture? Why is site architecture important? For example: Try to avoid dynamically generated url’s that contain multiple dynamic variables. Best practice to use URL’s that contain keywords, and/or makes sense to your website visitors. For existing sites that use dynamic URLs, it might make sense to implement 301 redirects on the URL’s to have them appear as static. An additional SEO benefit is the URL structure can increase clickthroughs from Search Engine results pages. Consider how many times you DIDN’T click on a search listing because you saw another listing that had keywords in the URL. So, you passed on the dynamic URL, and clicked on the listing that had a URL that made sense, right? Another important SEO value, is that the keywords are in the URL, especially since the keywords/URL combination is used in a specific, contextually relevant environment. This has a strong tendency to increase rankings when used in combination with other SEO tactics. As you can see, the site architecture makes it easier for the Search Engine’s to decipher what your site and specific page is about. And, as we all know, the key to being #1 in Google is getting them to think you have the most contextually relevant (and resource-rich, authoritative) page to the search query. Related posts: |
November 12th, 2007 at
Great Post!! I think that these basic site architecture tips in your post are fantastic. They are so simple to do and yet one of the best way to tell the search engines exactly what your site is about.
November 13th, 2007 at
IA is not really about URLs, though it is about applying the right labels for the right information and that is very close to SEO indeed.
If done well: applying the right labels/words, both the visitor and the search engines will benefit from this.
February 23rd, 2010 at
I have a question about maintaining links for the “old” and “new” versions of my website. I have received conflicting strategies; 1) dns change on the domain name with a short ttl for a quick 1 time cutover to the new site layout 2) create a new domain name pointing at the old site so that the crawlers will assimilate both the old and the new and keep the ranking higher. Who should I believe?
-John