Designing a URL Structure for Ecommerce Websites

(Google Best Practices for Crawl-Friendly & SEO-Optimized URLs)

🔍 Why URL Structure Matters #

• Good URL design → Google crawls & indexes faster, products appear in search sooner.
  
• Bad URL design → Duplicate pages, missed content, crawling delays.
  

Examples of Common Problems:
❌ #fragment URLs → Google ignores everything after #
❌ Duplicate product URLs → /t-shirt?sku=123 vs /t-shirt/black
❌ Infinite URL loops → /about?time=12:34 keeps generating new variations

✅ Best Practices for URL Design #

1. General URL Recommendations #

• Use one clean URL per page (avoid duplicates).
  
• Keep consistent lowercase URLs.
  
• Ensure paginated results have unique URLs.
  
• Add descriptive words (SEO-friendly keywords) in URLs:
  
  • ✅ /product/black-tshirt
    
  • ❌ /product/3243

2. Query Parameter Recommendations #

• Use ?key=value format, not just ?value:
  
  • ✅ /tshirt?color=green
    
  • ❌ /tshirt?green
    
• Avoid repeating the same parameter:
  
  • ✅ ?type=candy,sweet
    
  • ❌ ?type=candy&type=sweet
    
• Don’t internally link to temporary parameters (session IDs, timestamps):
  
  • ✅ /tshirt?location=UK
    
  • ❌ /tshirt?session=12345

3. Product Variants (Colors, Sizes, etc.) #

• Each variant should have a unique URL:
  
  • Path: /tshirt/green
    
  • Query: /tshirt?color=green
    
• Use canonical tags:
  
  • Canonical: /tshirt (main)
    
  • Variant: /tshirt?color=green → <link rel=”canonical” href=”/tshirt” />

4. Consistency in Internal Linking #

• Use the same URL in:
  
  • Internal links
    
  • Sitemap
    
  • Canonical tags
    
• Use self-referencing canonical tags on all indexable pages.
  
• Avoid JavaScript-only navigation; use <a href> links.

5. Empty or Low-Content Pages #

• If a category is empty:
  
  • Use noindex meta tag or
    
  • Return 404 status
    

📌 FSIDM Pro Tip #

Always design URLs as if they’re customer-friendly first — short, descriptive, consistent. Googlebot loves clean structures, but so do people.

📌 Meta Title: Designing an SEO-Friendly URL Structure for Ecommerce Sites (Google Guide)
📌 Meta Description: Learn how to structure ecommerce URLs for better Google indexing. FSIDM’s guide covers best practices for product variants, query parameters, canonicals, and pagination.