Best URL Setructure for SEO

Hello all, I would like to start off by saying this is a great discussion board and I have been reading the threads here for sometime know. This is my first post I hope I am putting this in the right area.

Here is my situation:

I am redesigning a website to make it more search engine friendly. Currently the sites urls are fielded with variables and I plan to change them, but my problem is which method would be the better way to change them in terms of seo. So I am asking for feedback as to which direction I should take my url structure. See below for the options I have come up with. Just to provide more information this site is a online education directory where students can submit information request to the schools to get more information.

method 1 example
xyzsite.com/mba

method 2 exampl
xyzsite.com/online-degree/mba

thanks for the help

 

I pick example 1 since its more relevent to what the search is

depending on what the folders represent of course

 

Choose first one, there is not much use from long urls.

 

i will go for 1st and there in no deep linking.but if u have more category than second one will be good.

 

I'm going to take the alternate opinion and say that I like the 2nd choice.

It includes your keywords and is more targeted. The search universe for just the word "mba" must be huge.

Of course, this is just one small part of successful optimization. Good SEO-friendly content and solid keyword-rich backlinks are the two areas where you should spend most of your time.

 

I use the second one because it adds more specific keywords.. My URLS are like:

<My-Site-Domain>/Category-Name/Article-Title-<ID>.html

You can see below.

http://www.invision-gaming.co.uk/Counter-Strike-Source/CSS-Mani-Admin-Plugin-16.html

I dont consider it deep linking anyway.

 

remember though the more words the more diluted for each term