Best folder hierarchy for SEO?

[Mulberrywood]

Currently I am using Dreamweaver and have a root folder: www.mulberrywood.com with an index file directly below it.

I also have all my various files in folders as opposed to directly below the root like my index file.


As an example I have one regular text htm file and 3 jpeg files in the "about us" folder. www.mulberrywood.com/aboutus

I set the site up this way in anticipation of down the road having many files. However, a friend has told me that for SEO reasons I should do two things:

1) Remove my jpegs from the subject folders and put them all in an image folder. (currently I am not using an image folder)

2) Get rid of my subject folders and put all my current files on the same level as my index file.

This would result in a long flat list of files within DW in the Asset area. At the moment I could do this and be ok, but in the future I will have hundreds if not thousands of files.


Any advice out there on what a best folder hierarchy should look like?

Tutorials?

Screenshots?

Thank you very much!

[Webnauts]

On the fly:

- main (html files)
- cgi-bin
- images
- stylesheets
- scripts

:)

[Mulberrywood]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

On the fly:

- main (html files)
- cgi-bin
- images
- stylesheets
- scripts
:)

Thank you. Do you agree with my friend's advice? Others have told me that there is no SEO reason to use a separate image folder and that I should do whatever is best for my workflow and site visitors.

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by Mulberrywood

Do you agree with my friend's advice? Others have told me that there is no SEO reason to use a separate image folder and that I should do whatever is best for my workflow and site visitors.

Following convention is good - especially if you plan to have other developers work on your site. But, there are lots of sites that don't use that orginizational convention for the image folder. When you have a really large site, with multiple sub-sites under it, it's very common to have multiple image folders. So if that works best for your workflow, go for it!

[mantawebsolutions]

Having a good site structure, especially for large sites, is good to have, as it simply makes it easier to maintain and also find pages and files.

SE crawlers crawl a page (including images) from top to bottom and indexes the files and images as they find it .

However, I would go as far as saying that file naming is much more important for SEO purposes than file structure.

[timmathews.com]

I have found very large sites with all the .html files in the root to be a bit difficult to work with, but honestly, for SEO sake, do it.
I have seen a page in the root of a website, goodboy.com/here.html have a pr6-7 and a page inside a subdirectory, goodboy.com/folder/here.html have a SIGNIFICANTLY smaller page rank, pr2-3 even though the page was older and linked well.
I know PR is not the discussion here, and it is only a guide, but the logic makes sense...
If it is important, it will most likely be in the root...
My nickels worth...

[stymiee]

Your directory structure does not affect your PR or pages' rank. Organize your documents in a logical manner that will make your life easier when operating the site.

And using directories is good for SEO because it allows you to get keywords in your URL which is helpful.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Mulberrywood

2) Get rid of my subject folders and put all my current files on the same level as my index file.

This would result in a long flat list of files within DW in the Asset area. At the moment I could do this and be ok, but in the future I will have hundreds if not thousands of files.

Don't worrying about putting all your files in the main folder. Just build it so it is easy fro you to work in and organize as your website grows.

Also understand that your website architecture and crawlability/navigation is important in SEO. Much more than worrying about if you have one or two folders deep.

[danners02]

Your directory structure will effect which pages are crawled though, the higher the pagerank of a page the deeper (inside directories) spiders will crawl links from it (i belive?).

[Mulberrywood]

I am fascinated by the responses so far and I thank everyone!


It seems that there are two schools of thought:

1) Organze folders and files as is best for workflow and site visitors

2) Have a flat file structure to encourage Google to visit


It seems that there is no way to know for sure who is correct.

[cspelts]

Originally Posted by Mulberrywood

2) Have a flat file structure to encourage Google to visit

Google will visit pages in secondary folders - good navigation is all you need to make that happen! And partipating in Google Sitemaps also helps.

[Mulberrywood]

Originally Posted by cspelts

Google will visit pages in secondary folders - good navigation is all you need to make that happen! And partipating in Google Sitemaps also helps.

It sounds like Google is a fairly friendly visitor that justs needs a welcome mat.