What is the best URL structure for an online store?

URLs are a small ranking factor, but a messy structure causes bigger problems: duplicate pages, broken links after changes and confusion over which page should rank. A clear pattern helps shoppers too, because a URL shared on WhatsApp tells the recipient what they are about to open. Use lowercase words separated by hyphens, describe the page plainly, and leave out stop words and numbers that mean nothing to a customer, such as internal SKU codes.

Platforms set some of this for you. Shopify uses /collections/ for categories and /products/ for products and does not let you remove those parts, which is fine; focus on the readable part after them. WooCommerce defaults to /product-category/ and /product/, which you can change in permalink settings, though doing so on an established store needs a full set of redirects. On either platform, avoid nesting products under several category levels in the URL, because a product that moves between categories would then change its address.

Filters deserve special care. Colour, size, price and sorting options often create URLs with parameters for every combination. Those should usually stay out of Google's index, with canonical tags pointing to the main category, unless a particular filtered view matches a real search — 'black abaya' might deserve its own category page with a clean URL and its own text. Decide that deliberately rather than letting the filter app decide. Finally, choose your structure early and keep it. Every URL change, however tidy the new one looks, risks losing rankings unless each old address is redirected to its exact new equivalent.