The reason for this article
I originally compiled this in response to a question relating to the merits/pitfalls of including directories and subdirectories in paths relating to SEO on Opencart shopping cart software.
“You may get a lot of opinion on this but here’s my 2cents.
- realize search engines are striving to be as human-like as possible. Search engines may tweak their algorithms but this is the direction they are heading.
- any keywords in the URL are scored highly. Putting long paths in the URL dilutes this effect
- Too much duplication dilutes the effect
- Significant related keywords boost the scoring but again, too much duplication may dilute this.
So relating this to your question, I say keep it simple and relevant, don’t overuse keywords or try to use ‘tricks’. Concentrate on the specifics of your category for the category, and the specifics of the product for the product and let the search engines worry about how to arrange their results.
Having category/subcategory in path should be fine in general but if you wanted to fine tune and have complete control, I would say no folder paths and repeat parts of category where required.
Example
So rather than audio/mp3players/ipod8gb
you could have no folders and
mp3-ipod8gb
Result
If someone searches for ‘mp3 ipod 8gb’ would give better product relevance than folder paths and searches for ‘mp3 players’ would be more likely to locate your category.”