SEO Glossary

URL Structure

Definition

URL structure refers to how a website organises its web addresses. Clean, descriptive, logically hierarchical URLs are easier for both search engines and users to understand and navigate.

A URL consists of a protocol (https://), a domain (example.com), and a path (/blog/seo-audit-guide). The path is where URL structure decisions are made.

Characteristics of a well-structured URL:

  • Descriptive: /blog/technical-seo-guide is better than /blog?p=12483
  • Lowercase: Mixing case creates duplicate URL variants and confuses crawlers
  • Hyphen-separated: Hyphens are word separators for search engines; underscores are not
  • Shallow: Fewer path segments is generally better
  • Parameter-free: Session IDs and filter combinations create thousands of near-duplicate URLs that waste crawl budget

URL parameters: Query strings like ?sort=price&color=red can generate enormous numbers of unique URLs showing the same content. Canonicalise these to the clean URL or configure parameter handling in Google Search Console.

What SearchVitals checks: The Architecture audit analyses URL patterns across crawled pages, flagging overly long URLs, non-descriptive paths, and inconsistent parameter use as findings by severity.

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