Designing a URL structure for ecommerce websites

Well-designed URLs can help Google more efficiently locate and retrieve web pages on your
ecommerce site. If you control the structure of your URLs (for example, you are building your
own site from scratch), then this guide can help you decide on your URL structure to avoid
indexing problems seen by Google on ecommerce sites.

Why URL structure matters

A good URL design structure helps Google crawl and index your site, while a poor URL structure can lead to the following issues:

• Content can be missed if Googlebot incorrectly thinks two URLs will return the same
  content as only one URL may be retrieved by the crawler (the other is discarded as a
  duplicate). This can happen if fragment identifiers (like #fragment) are
  used to show different content. Google does not use fragment identifiers in indexing.

  Example: /product/t-shirt#black and /product/t-shirt#white
  are considered to be the same page by Google.

• The same content may be retrieved multiple times by the crawler if Google thinks two URLs
  are different but result in the same page being returned. This can slow down
  the crawling of your site and put additional load on your web server for no benefit.

  Example: /product/black-t-shirt and /product?sku=1234 may return
  the same product page, but Google cannot determine this by looking at the URL alone.

• The crawler may think your site contains an infinite number of pages if your URLs
  include a continually changing value such as a timestamp. As a result, Google may take
  longer to find all the useful content on your site.

  Example: /about?now=12:34am and /about?now=12:35am may be
  treated as different URLs by Google even though both URLs display the same page.

See How Google Search Works
and How Google’s Site Crawlers Index Your Site
for more information on how Google crawls and indexes your site.

Good URL structure design best practices

To optimize how Google crawls and indexes your website, follow these best practices on how to
structure your URLs.

General URL recommendations

• Minimize the number of alternative URLs that return the same content to avoid Google making
  more requests to your site than needed. Google may not realize that two URLs return the same
  page until after both are retrieved.
• If upper and lower case text in a URL is treated the same by the web server, convert all
  text to the same case so it is easier for Google to determine that URLs reference the same
  page.
• Make sure each page in paginated results has a unique URL. We see the most URL mistakes in
  pagination URL structures.

• Add descriptive words in URL paths. The words in URLs may help Google better understand the page.

  Recommended:
  /product/black-t-shirt-with-a-white-collar

  Not recommended:
  /product/3243

URL query parameter recommendations

Follow these recommendations when using query parameters to help Google successfully crawl and
index your site.

• Use ?key=value URL parameters rather than ?value, where possible.
  URL parameters allow Google Search to understand your site’s structure and crawl and index more efficiently.

  Recommended:
  /photo-frames?page=2, /t-shirt?color=green

  Not recommended:
  /photo-frames?2, /t-shirt?green

• Avoid using the same parameters twice. Googlebot may ignore one of the values otherwise.

  Recommended:
  ?type=candy,sweet

  Not recommended:
  ?type=candy&type=sweet

• Avoid internally linking to temporary parameters, such as session-IDs, tracking codes,
  user-relative values (location=nearby, time=last-week), and
  the current time. This can result in URLs that have a short life or duplicate URLs
  for the same page. To get the best results from Google Search, use long-term, persistent
  URLs.

  Recommended:
  /t-shirt?location=UK

  Not recommended:
  /t-shirt?location=nearby, /t-shirt?current-time=12:02, /t-shirt?session=123123123

How Google understands URLs for product variants

A common consideration on ecommerce sites is how to structure URLs when a product is available
in multiple sizes or colors. Each combination of product attributes is referred to as a
product variant. To help Google understand your product variants, make sure that each
variant can be identified by a separate URL. We recommend the following URL structures for variant URLs:

• A path segment, such as /t-shirt/green
• A query parameter, such as /t-shirt?color=green

For more information, see the product variant structured data documentation.

If you use optional query parameters to identify variants, use the URL with the query
parameter omitted as the canonical URL. This can help Google better understand the
relationship between product variants.

Using URLs in your content

To help Google Search and Google Shopping correctly identify your products and the
relationship between product variants, follow these best practices when using URLs in your
content.

• Use the same URL in internal links, sitemap files, and
  <link rel="canonical"> tags.
  For example, if linking to the first page in a paginated sequence using a query
  parameter where the default page is page one, either include or exclude ?page=1
  on the URL throughout your site consistently.
• Use a self-referencing
  <link rel="canonical"> tag
  (one where the URL in the tag points to the current page) on all indexable pages and include those URLs in a
  sitemap
  file.
• For products with unique URLs per variant, include the canonical product URL on all variant
  pages using a <link rel="canonical"> tag. For more information, see
  the canonical_link property of Google Merchant Center.
• Include links directly on the pages using <a href> tags;
  don’t use JavaScript to navigate between pages. Googlebot might not detect navigation from
  JavaScript code. For more information about how Google processes JavaScript, see
  Understand the JavaScript SEO basics.
• Include meaningful text between <a href> and </a> tags where possible, such as
  the title of the product being linked to. Don’t use generic phrases such as “click here”.
• Avoid linking to, or at least indexing, pages without useful content. If a category has no items, use a
  noindex robots meta tag.
  If your site detects that a category has become empty and automatically removes the category
  from on-site search and browse, consider returning a 404 (not found) HTTP status code for the page.

Additional resources

Want to learn more? Check out the following resources:

• Help Google understand your site structure
• Avoid creating duplicate content
• Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Search
• Managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs