What to Know:
– Google’s Gary Illyes explains the benefits of a hierarchical site structure for SEO.
– A hierarchical site structure organizes a website’s content in a hierarchical manner, with a main homepage at the top, followed by categories, subcategories, and individual pages.
– This structure helps search engines understand the website’s organization and improves user experience.
– A hierarchical structure allows for easier navigation and helps users find relevant content quickly.
– It also helps search engines crawl and index the website more efficiently.
– A well-organized site structure can lead to better rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
The Full Story:
Google’s Gary Illyes recently explained the benefits of a hierarchical site structure for SEO. A hierarchical site structure organizes a website’s content in a hierarchical manner, with a main homepage at the top, followed by categories, subcategories, and individual pages. This structure helps search engines understand the website’s organization and improves user experience.
One of the main benefits of a hierarchical site structure is that it allows for easier navigation. Users can easily navigate through the website by following the hierarchy, starting from the main homepage and drilling down into relevant categories and subcategories. This makes it easier for users to find the content they are looking for, leading to a better user experience.
In addition to improving user experience, a hierarchical site structure also helps search engines crawl and index the website more efficiently. When search engines crawl a website, they follow links from one page to another. A hierarchical structure makes it easier for search engines to understand the relationship between different pages and navigate through the website.
By organizing the website’s content in a hierarchical manner, search engines can quickly identify the main categories and subcategories, and understand how they are related to each other. This helps search engines index the website more efficiently, ensuring that all relevant pages are included in the search engine’s index.
A well-organized site structure can also lead to better rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). When search engines understand the website’s organization and can easily navigate through the content, they are more likely to consider the website as a reliable and authoritative source of information. This can result in higher rankings for relevant keywords and increased visibility in search results.
Illyes also mentioned that a hierarchical site structure can help with site migrations and redesigns. When a website undergoes a migration or redesign, it is important to maintain the existing site structure to ensure that search engines can still understand the organization of the website. By keeping the hierarchical structure intact, search engines can quickly adapt to the changes and continue to crawl and index the website effectively.
In conclusion, a hierarchical site structure offers several benefits for SEO. It improves user experience by providing easy navigation and helps search engines understand the organization of the website. It also allows for efficient crawling and indexing, leading to better rankings in search engine results pages. When planning a website’s structure, it is important to consider a hierarchical approach to optimize for SEO.
Original article: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-google-recommends-hierarchical-site-structure-for-seo/504612/