Every web page has a URL.
So, it only makes sense that it’s a key factor in how your website ranks on search engines, right?
Poor URL structure can negatively impact your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts and ultimately, your website’s organic traffic.
Don’t believe us? We have original data to show you just how much a change in URL structure can make a difference.
But first, let’s have a quick run over the URL basics.
What is URL Structure?
URL structure is a fundamental component of Search Engine Optimisation that significantly influences how search engines interpret and rank web content.
Essentially, a well-structured URL aids search engines in understanding the page’s context and enhances user experience by providing clear, readable links.
A robust URL structure contributes to a better indexation of pages by search engines, which in turn can drive higher organic traffic and improve overall site performance.
How to Structure a URL for SEO
To craft the best URL structure for SEO, start by ensuring your website operates on a secure HTTPS protocol, which search engines favour for its enhanced security measures.
Next, make sure you eliminate the inclusion of dates (such as /07/03/2024/) to maintain content relevance over time. This allows your content to stay evergreen and withhold a positive click-through rate (CTR).
By incorporating relevant keywords that clearly convey the theme and purpose of the page to both users and search engines, you indicate to search engine bots the intent of your page, which significantly improves ranking.
Ideally, URLs should be kept short and concise, avoiding unnecessary characters and symbols. Any symbols or characters used should be relevant and add value to the URL.
Additionally, avoid using stop words like “and,” “the,” or “in,” as they add unnecessary length and detract from the URL’s clarity.
It’s a brief guide, but by following these principles you can create an SEO-friendly URL structure that is both efficient and effective in boosting organic traffic.
How Does URL Structure Impact SEO?
The impact URL structure has on a website’s ranking is huge.
And no, we’re not just saying that – we have the data to back it up.
A client of ours was using a plugin that would automatically translate the content on the page based on the user’s location.
However, following an update, this plugin completely changed the URL structure across the website.
The URL of every page now included a hreflang tag for each geographical area, such as /en/ or /fr/ for English and French respectively.
These URLs were creating duplicate content across the domain, impacting the website’s SEO performance.
What’s more, the URLs of our SEO blog posts also contained their publication date, reading as ‘/en/2023/07/03/canonical-URL/’.
Remember, one of the first rules of URL structure for SEO is to not include dates.
In short, it wasn’t looking good.
The Solution
Once we noticed this was happening, we immediately uninstalled the plugin and took action.
We changed the URL structure to remove both hreflang and date-related tags from the URLs.
In this case, it was as simple as changing all URLs to ‘/blog/canonical-URL/’.
However, despite the plugin being installed, the old URLs were still appearing on reports, being indexed and ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) – but admittedly, not as high as they once were.
To ensure the site’s performance recovered, we dedicated hours to redirecting every URL to its appropriate destination.
Over time, the website’s performance recovered from this change in URL structure but we could never have expected the results to be as substantial as they were.
267% Increase in Organic Traffic
We knew the change would improve the website’s performance, but the results blew us away.
When we compare the 7-month period that followed the URL update to its previous period, we discovered that our client experienced a staggering 267.53% increase in organic traffic and a 130.9% increase in online visibility.
Over these two periods, there was an average click difference of 1537 and an average impression difference of 91,077 – in large part due to the change in URL structure.
This case study proves that even a small adjustment to your URL structure can have a significant impact on your website’s SEO performance.
Not only did our client see a substantial increase in organic traffic and online visibility, but the click-through rate for their content also improved as a result of the more concise and user-friendly URLs.
Deep-Dive Into Specific Pages
The top lines are impressive, but the truly fascinating results peer their head when we look at the difference in performance on individual pages.
For example, one of our client’s blog posts has experienced a 452.3% increase in organic traffic and a 183% increase in impressions over a 7-month period due to the change in URL structure.
Another blog post saw a 146.5% increase in organic traffic and a 230.5% increase in impressions, while another saw a 207.3% increase in organic traffic.
However, the most impressive example from our findings is an individual page that saw a whopping 30,300% increase in organic traffic and is now ranking in the top position for its primary target keyword.
(That’s right, thirty thousand per cent).
While the figure is awe-inspiring (and a definite outlier in our study), it highlights how a small alteration to a page can transform it from dead weight to a valuable, high-ranking page.
Ways URL Structure Affects Website SEO
Our results touched on the impact URL structure can have on a website’s SEO performance, but we wanted to explore the various ways URL structure can affect a website’s ranking.
From our experience and research, we’ve identified three essential considerations when it comes to structuring URLs for optimal SEO performance:
Rankings & Impressions
As our data highlights, the structure of a URL significantly influences a website’s rankings and impressions in SERPs.
Although it’s the content of the page that plays a major part in determining a page’s ranking, the URL structure is also a vital factor.
While search engines are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their ability to understand content and context, they still rely on signals like URL structure to determine the relevance and intent of a page.
Additionally, a concise and clear URL is more likely to attract clicks from users browsing through search results, which can further improve rankings and impressions.
By eliminating unnecessary parameters, special characters, and redundant information, you ensure a seamless user experience, which is increasingly pivotal in today’s competitive digital landscape.
Website Traffic
URL structure plays a major part in the generation of website traffic, whether the traffic comes from SERPs, social media, or internal sources.
A well-optimised URL structure ensures that users and search engines alike can easily navigate the site, understanding the hierarchy and relevance of the pages.
This clarity leads to improved crawling and indexing by search engines, which increases the likelihood of higher rankings on SERPs – as previously mentioned.
Additionally, short, descriptive URLs that include targeted keywords are more likely to attract clicks, as they appear more relevant and trustworthy to users.
This, in turn, boosts the CTR, driving greater organic traffic to the website.
User Experience
Lastly, a meticulously designed URL structure is essential in enhancing a website’s user experience.
Clean, intuitive URLs facilitate easier navigation, allowing users to understand the context and hierarchy of the content they are accessing.
When URLs are logical and descriptive, users can swiftly infer the topic of the page, which significantly reduces bounce rates as visitors are more likely to find relevant content quickly.
Moreover, human-readable URLs devoid of complex strings or unnecessary parameters instil a sense of trustworthiness, making users feel more confident in continuing their journey through the website.
This seamless user experience not only fosters longer on-site engagement but also increases the likelihood of repeat visits, as users appreciate the straightforward and organised structure.
With user experience becoming a crucial ranking factor in 2025, ensuring a well-structured URL hierarchy is more important than ever for achieving and maintaining high rankings on SERPs.
Conclusion
A well-optimised URL structure not only benefits your website’s rankings and impressions but also drives traffic, improves user experience, and boosts overall SEO performance.
Our case study highlights the significant impact a simple change to URL structure can have on a website’s performance, with the site experiencing a staggering increase in average traffic of 1017.88%.
If anything, our study shows that optimisation efforts don’t always need to be drastic to significantly impact website performance.
If you believe the content is good and relevant, a small change can go a long way in improving your website’s SEO performance. That could be altering a URL, changing a title tag or heading, or even just updating outdated information.
By consistently monitoring and improving upon these small details, you can help boost your website’s rankings and visibility, ultimately driving more traffic and conversions.
So the next time you think about dismissing a seemingly minor change to your website, remember our case study and take a second look – it could be the key to unlocking exponential growth for your business.