: SEO: Include category in URL to article/post? Is it good for SEO to include the category in the URL? Like so: articlesIDexample_categoryslug Or does it not matter and only make the URL

@Hamaas447

Basically I agree – for search engine optimization it can be very useful to have a machine (and human) redable category name in your url. As John Conde points out it also helps you, your visitors and search bots to categorize your content.

But I would strongly recommend to have a hierachical url structure – which does not seem to be the case in your example.

And maybe you could also leave the "articles" out or find a better content related title for that directory like "gadget-news/" or "concert-reviews/" or whatever siuts your content best.

So instead of

/articles/ID/example_category/slug


use something like this:

/main-category/sub-category/slug


or if you/ your cms needs the article ID you could just append it to the slug

/main-category/sub-category/slug-ID


This way your url structure would also be quite similar to a corresponding breadcrumb – which could also be handy at some point.

ps: If you just have one main category that's fine – I just used that term instead of "subject" or "theme" because it suits the idea of ordering content in a hierarchical structure.

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@Sarah324

It's helpful for SEO. Besides getting a keyword in your URL, which is a ranking factor, it helps to categorize and organize your content which is also good for SEO.

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