Flat vs. Hierarchical Tree Structure

Question

I am a developer in the middle of the development of a medium-sized website. A requirement that we just received from the resident SEO person on the project is for all the URLs on the site to be just off the root (e.g. /product-name, /small-keywords-separated-by-hyphens).

Here is an example (one of a few, both I think this is the one that would potentially favor his viewpoint the most):

1. Solutions http://example.com/solutions/
   • 1.1 Showcase http://example.com/showcase/
   • 1.2 Healthcare http://example.com/healthcare/
   • 1.3 Education http://example.com/education/
   • 1.4 Residential http://example.com/residential/
   • 1.5 Industrial http://example.com/industrial/

To be clear, I'm advocating a structure like: /solutions/showcase, /solutions/healthcare/, etc.

To me, there are clearly defined sections of the site, there are various parts of content which seem to deserve their own place in the structure of the site.

Here were his points:

Decreased keyword density for the words being targeted in the URL, the longer the URL the less emphasis is being placed on the keywords being targeted in the URL

Decreased emphasis on the importance of the page from a search engine standpoint, the further the page rests off of the root the less importance is attributed to that page

Decreased adaptability over time, for example when time comes to redesign the site again in the future, suppose the navigation changes, by incorporating the folder you have reduced your ability to re-use the URLs on the new site and minimize any slippage in the search results

Decreased usability for advertising the URL, suppose [company] wants to run a print campaign on a particular [product], the shorter URL would be more user friendly and more likely to lead to a conversion

The points I made in response were around user experience and based off this document from Google.

Personally I've never seen the structure he is proposing.

Is this type of thing best practice for SEO?

Answer 1

Your resident SEO expert has valid points, but they're all circumstantial.

Decreased keyword density for the words being targeted in the URL, the longer the URL the less emphasis is being placed on the keywords being targeted in the URL

This is an important factor if you have a url like mysite.example/solutions/healthcare/benefits/etc/etc/. But just going down one level I don't think will have a noticeable impact.

Decreased emphasis on the importance of the page from a search engine standpoint, the further the page rests off of the root the less importance is attributed to that page

Whereas this is true, going one more level down won't effect enough to redo the current structure of the site.

Decreased adaptability over time, for example when time comes to redesign the site again in the future, suppose the navigation changes, by incorporating the folder you have reduced your ability to re-use the URLs on the new site and minimize any slippage in the search results

Yes, you want to have a redesign of your site in mind for the future but it shouldn't be the sole determining factor on the overall structure of your site.

Decreased usability for advertising the URL, suppose [company] wants to run a print campaign on a particular [product], the shorter URL would be more user friendly and more likely to lead to a conversion

True, however if you wanted to advertise a particular product you could easily devise other means of showing it off (e.g. a shorter url or have it in a 'featured products' area right on the homepage).

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What I'm trying to get at is, whereas these are all good SEO techniques, even combined it is not enough to change the structure of your site. In this situation, go with your web designer instinct. Having more categorized content rather than lumping it all together (especially if your 'solutions' example will contain plenty of organized content itself).