Long URI names Vs. Directory names

[ulukach]

Hello

When we build the URLs in our Portal we can write the specific keywords in the URI:

i.e.

http://DOMAIN/insurance-products-life-insurance.html

Or we can use directories to nest the information:

i.e.

http://DOMAIN/insurance/products/life-insurance.html

What way will grant us a better ranking when the user searches for:
"products for life insurance"

Cheers
Luk

[JohnW]

this one is better - IMO 3 hyphens is one hyphen too many.
http://DOMAIN/insurance/products/life-insurance.html

[shaneekirk]

Agreed. Up to 2 or 3 keywords after the /

[ulukach]

From a short experiment that we did, we could see that
Windows Live streamed significantly more traffic when we used:


http://example.com/insurance-products-life-insurance.html


Google didn't showed any significant change

[jimbeetle]

How long was your experiment?

[Stevo]

I would leave away the word products. If someone is looking for a life insurance, that's what he is gonna type into the search textbox. No need to say insurance twice either.

I'd go for life-insurace.html

Maybe add a page with all your insurance products named insurance-products.html where you list all your products. Then link from this page to the life insurance page.

By the way: keywords in the url will only help your ranking, if someone links to this page using the url as linktext (as far as i know).

[ulukach]

Hi Jim
The experiment goes on till now, the real burst comes from Windows Live. It may sounds strange although this is real live experiment and Window Lives appear to give more significant to hyphens rather than directory names.

Cheers
Luk