why all the so-called gurus and popular blogs say it's better for SEO and UX to have the category in the permalink eg for e-commerce: domain.com/shop/catagory/productname but when I see the structure of these blogs or any popular e-commerce or any website that has high monthly views they always use the permalink without the category it's just domain.com/productname or for blogs domain.com/postname and that's it
so Why are they saying something while doing another and I see domain.com/postname is better for me in case i need to change the product category or do some changes later on my e-commerce, so I don't have to deal with error 404 and 301 redirect
iam happy to hear your opinion on this ,also what permalink structure do you use? and has any permalink structure impacted your website in any way "positive or negative" ?
Permalinks are just one small portion of your SEO strategy, and there isn’t a singular “correct” permalink structure. You don’t have to listen to other people’s opinions. Use what works better for you and don’t allow Big Permalink to control your decisions.
Hi! If you can analyze for the case of simplicity and keyword relevance it’s suggested to have shorter URLs. That enhances user experience (UX), makes it easier to read and remember, and makes it less likely to break if you change categories later—like you said, avoiding 404 errors and the hassle of 301 redirects.
Also, Google doesn’t rely solely on the URL structure for rankings anymore. For most sites, especially e-commerce, having a short, simple URL without categories works best because it’s flexible and easy to manage.
I haven’t noticed any negative impact, and if anything, it helps with managing content easier long-term.
It just gives sense of the structure of the website, nowadays breadcrumbs are doing this job. No performance impact according to what I read!