City in URL

[Mike Pedersen]

I see this over and over again.

Google is still ranking most of the sites on the first page with city in the URL.

I am in the dental niche, and it's across the board in every city and town.

Mike

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Mike,

Keywords in the website URL are definitely still a ranking factor. I see it often as well.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Google still loves EMDs and PMDs for local.
As well as keyword + city in the business name.

 

[patrice]

Maybe you can probably also add the Zip code, it's still very powerful in France right now, i don't know in the USA. -> Atlanta-30317 for example.

in France if you try to find a restaurant in Paris in the 17th district you see many urls like /restaurant-blablabla-paris-75017 75017 being the zip code of the district). They perform very well.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

I've tested this a few times, and on all cases i've seen some pretty positive results; Usually getting a page within the top 3 SERP pages within about 24-48 hours. Will it get you to the #1 spot? No, there are a ton of other factors you need to be aware of and work with, but it definitely helps. Its a relevance factor, and a usability factor. People will look to the address bar to try and find where they are on the site, so I think it helps in a few ways.

 

[Yutana]

Can someone answer this question? What kind of results do you see when you include the geo (city) in the URL, but in a sub folder (e.g. /city) Do you foresee the results being almost close to having the city in the URL itself?

 

[CodyBaird]

The effect is not the same in a sub folder (as influential as domain itself) but it helps rankings enough that we include it on most local sites - .com/st/city/service

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[henbawkins]

It's a really big deal. I just did a domain change for a client that couldn't rank in the metropolis because their physical location is in a small city which is within the metropolis.

Their original URL contained "smallcity+keyword", we changed it to "metropolis+keyword" and very quickly they started appearing in all significant local packs and anywhere from position 20 - 2 organically

 

[Mike Pedersen]

Did you do 301 redirects for them?

It's a really big deal. I just did a domain change for a client that couldn't rank in the metropolis because their physical location is in a small city which is within the metropolis.

Their original URL contained "smallcity+keyword", we changed it to "metropolis+keyword" and very quickly they started appearing in all significant local packs and anywhere from position 20 - 2 organically

 

[henbawkins]

Yeah, 301'd everything

 

[Mike Pedersen]

If the domain does not have city in it, would you do domain.com/city-keyword for each services offered by company?