Confused about Site Structure based on Content Hubs

[alexsam]

For example if i want to create a content hub around the topic “keyword-research”.

1. So my page structure should be:

http://www.blog.com/keyword-research (in-depth content on a category page redirected to a custom hub page)
http://www.blog.com/keyword-research/long-tail-keywords (sub page under category keyword-research)
http://www.blog.com/keyword-research/semantic-keywords (sub page under category keyword-research)
http://www.blog.com/keyword-research/short-tail-keywords(sub page under category keyword-research)
http://www.blog.com/keyword-research/lsi-keywords (sub page under category keyword-research)

for this approach to work I have two options

Option 1 – Create a category with title “Keyword Research” >> add the sub page under Keyword Research category >> Under WordPress permalink structure choose “domain/category/post” >> and finally redirect category page to custom pillar page created for Keyword Research.

Option 2 – Use Permalink manager plugin to rewrite URL and add a prefix to the subpages…


2. I would prefer this as this doesn't force me to change permalink structure and gives me freedom

http://www.blog.com/keyword-research (in-depth content on a custom hub page)
http://www.blog.com/long-tail-keywords (sub page under broader category SEO & interlinked on the http://www.blog.com/keyword-research page)
http://www.blog.com/semantic-keywords (sub page under broader category SEO & interlinked on the http://www.blog.com/keyword-research page)
http://www.blog.com/short-tail-keywords (sub page under broader category SEO & interlinked on the http://www.blog.com/keyword-research page)
http://www.blog.com/lsi-keywords (sub page under broader category SEO & interlinked on the http://www.blog.com/keyword-research page)

I am kind of confused with approach taken by these guys

1. https://backlinko.com/hub/seo

2. https://www.drift.com/learn/chatbot/

3. https://learn.g2.com/hubs (They have a very strange approach altogether)

I think I am overthinking this...

So, does it matter to Google if I put prefix of hub in URL??
Or Google just wants better interlinking and nice user experience??

I am experienced yet I am not an expert so please help me understand the better approach

 

[Ryuzaki]

I think you're overthinking something that at the end of the day doesn't matter remotely as much as you may think it does. The file path in the URL's slug doesn't matter much at all, even for "silos" and content hubs. Google understands all this stuff through interlinking, not URLs.

If you want to do your first option with a custom category page, you should achieve this with custom development work using Wordpress' native "templates" and if statements and what not to pull the right template for each category, etc. You don't want to pull this off with URL rewriting or redirecting.

Your 2nd option is fine. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. If you accept the fact that the URL file path doesn't need to include the sub-folders, then you're free of all of this.

A 3rd option for you is to forget about using posts for this and use Pages. Then the Parent Page's slug will appear in the URL path like you list out in your first set of examples. Parent Pages and Child Pages will get it done.

 

[alexsam]

Thanks for the detailed response... and after reading a few responses on Reddit & your reply I decided to go with the second approach as it is the easiest and I can change the structure at a later stage... Thanks @Ryuzaki