Category Paths in Product URLS - Yes or No?

Question

I've heard some conflicting opinions on whether having category paths in your product URLS is a good idea. An SEO guide I'm currently using suggests that Magento doesn’t support this functionality very well and it creates duplicate content issues.

In your experience, which is should I have this feature turned on or off?

Answer 1

It's fine to have category paths in URL's as long as you also enable canonicals (system->config->catalog->seo->canonical for categories/products->yes). This will stop any duplicate content issues.

Answer 2

I have found that the best SEO practice for this case is below setting(Currently Version Mage 2.2, 2.3);

Use Categories Path for Product URL: YES Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Categories: NO (This is so that We don't get penalize for the duplicate content issues coming from same categories for the products) Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Products: Yes

Make sure you

set Create Permanent Redirect for Old URL

and Under Marketing>URL Rewrites> Set all products to have Redirect Type for: Permanent(301)

Short Concise URL to contain two or three keywords you are trying to rank/emphasize for the product - When uploading products. Meta Title: 50~66 Character Letters Skip Meta Keywords (Current year:2019) Meta Descriptions 125~155 Character Letters

I would like to hear back from the community about the above setting as a best practice for SEO.