Which URL structure for SEO?

[mowax]

Sorry for the basic question but I'm setting up a new site and want to get it right...

Should the default product category be 'Home', so the page sits closer to the root? They will still be sorted into other categories for ease of navigation. I am under the impression that pages closer to the root perform better in search results.

Hope someone can offer advice

Thank you for any help!

[Ewonta]

You should not set the default category to "Home." Instead, create a main category for your products (e.g., "Catalog") and organize products into relevant subcategories. This will improve navigation, site structure, and SEO. The default category is for technical purposes, not optimization. 

[Knowband Plugins]

  Quote

pages closer to the root perform better in search results

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Yes, that's correct but that doesn't mean that all the products should be in the home category. The statement means the pages that are easier to navigate from the homepage have better search visibility.

To achieve the same you always have the option to link the different categories in the Top menu so that navigation of the pages is easy. 

 

[mowax]

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate the input.

I will indeed use a menu with all categories and subcategories reachable from the homepage (and all other pages). With that in mind, which of the following should be used?

a) domain.com/id-product

b) domain.com/catalog/id-product

c) domain.com/catalog/category-name/id-product

d) domain.com/category-name/id-product

 

[Knowband Plugins]

  Quote

d) domain.com/category-name/id-product

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This is the default structure of the PS & I belive its fine from the SEO perspective. 

 

 

[@diegofrancesco]

  On 2/22/2025 at 12:44 AM, mowax said:

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate the input.

I will indeed use a menu with all categories and subcategories reachable from the homepage (and all other pages). With that in mind, which of the following should be used?

a) domain.com/id-product

b) domain.com/catalog/id-product

c) domain.com/catalog/category-name/id-product

d) domain.com/category-name/id-product

 

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D is the best choice.

[axelstone]

Setting the default product category to "Home" won’t directly impact SEO. What matters more is a clear and structured URL hierarchy. Keeping products closer to the root (e.g., example.com/product-name instead of example.com/category/product-name) can help with rankings, but proper internal linking and navigation are more important. Use categories for organization and user experience, but don’t force everything under "Home" just for SEO.

[Mediacom87]

Hi,

For PrestaShop version 9, we've modified the native structure of product URLs to remove the reference to the category, in order to stabilize product URLs over time and avoid the accumulation of SEO-damaging 301 redirects.

The new structure thus becomes :

domain.com/p/id-product

The fact of having the category name in the URL is also a human problem, since some users were manually deleting the part corresponding to the product, hoping to come across the category URL when this is not the case.

For all new projects, I strongly advise you to use this new URL structure.

Afterwards, if you wish to reintroduce the default category reference in product URLs, this can be done without changing anything else, whereas the reverse requires you to set up a custom redirection in the htaccess file.