Non-linked product short descriptions bad on ecommerce sites?
-
Hi,
I have a question regarding SEO for ecommerce:
Do you guys think it could be a bad thing to display non-linked short product descriptions of products on the home page and category pages? Can that cause cannibalism between different pages and non-optimal keyword targeting?
I have a shop of which it's homepage tend to rank for some unintended phrases.
Thank you,
E
-
Hello mrlolalot (nice name, lol!),
As you already mentioned, Stores Direct has suggested what is about the best way to handle this, which is to not link the short description text, but to use it to improve usability. To that I would add, try to work in a few keyword phrases that are optimized for the page on which the short descriptions appear, which shouldn't be difficult since they are appearing on a category page that is relevant to the type of product they describe. I would also mention one potential downside of showing short descriptions on category pages is that products that live in multiple categories could have their short description showing on more than one page. Still, I think the reward is bigger than the risk as long as you don't have the same products in more than a couple categories. If most of your products are in four, five, six... categories than you're going to have a pretty big duplicate content problem on your hands.
Also as you already mentioned, linking the short description isn't going to do you much good since you're linking the product title above it, which is probably a far-better link to have anyway, keyword-wise. Linking the title of a product is the epitome or relevant anchor text. And I'd stay away from nofollow linking any internal page on the site with the exception of perhaps cart and account type pages, which should be noindexed in the meta tag and/or disallowed in the robots.txt file anyway.
But to answer your question: Yes, it can be a bad thing to display non-linked short product descriptions on the home page and category pages IF you aren't using the keywords for which you want the home and category pages to rank; and IF you are showing that same short description on several pages (i.e. multiple categories and the home page). But I do like short product descriptions to appear on category pages for reasons Stores Direct explained in his first answer. So my advice would be to adjust the keyword use if you can, while addressing the duplicate content problem if that is an issue.
Sometimes with these established sites you'll find the category pages already ranking for the product-level keywords and you may worry that changing the strategy will cause the page to no longer rank. An example:
Your widget category might rank for Small Purple Widget because you have a short description on there for your Small Purple Widget product. The question then becomes: Does your Small Purple Widget page also rank? If not, why not? That is what you, your users, and Google all want to rank. Everyone wants the same thing so it should be simple to fix. And if they both rank, then there really isn't a problem UNLESS - your category page doesn't rank for its own keyword, at which point you should think about adjusting the short description text (if it only appears on that one page) or removing it (if it appears on multiple pages).
As always, testing is key. You can take them out and see what happens. It isn't that difficult to add them back in on most systems.
Let us know if we're not understanding your question correctly.
-
I get your point.
But, since the short description link would be pointing toward the same target as the products name (which naturally comes first) Google won't take that anchor text into consideration for the targeted page. Only the first anchor text counts.
Which means that having the product description link follow or nofollow will make no difference.
-
If you're working with existing short descriptions which contain the keywords the category page is targeting you don't want the short descriptions to link to the product - this is like putting up signposts telling Google that the product pages are all more relevant to the keyword than the category page. The trouble is this raises a usability issue because your site users may like clicking on the short description.
I'm just wondering if there's another way round this - would using "noindex,follow" on the short description links neutralise the cannibalisation issue while retaining usability? My hands on work is more with the content side of things than the technical, so I'm not certain how well this would work.
-
I definitely agree that would be the best way to use short descriptions, and it's definitely the way I would do it if I were to start from scratch.
But the problem that I have now is unfortunately an aged shop with thousands of product and with products short descriptions are fairly rich of (general) keywords.
Do you think I could see improvements by simply linking the short descriptions to the product page?
-
Can it cause cannibalism? It depends on the words you use.
We don't currently use short descriptions but it's a proposal that's on the table. I think that when it's done well it can add real value to site users, with potential to improve click-through from category pages. If we go ahead I won't be keyword stuffing those short descriptions - I'll be using them to differentiate different (but similar) products within a category and trying to work in references to the benefits and advantages of products. It's like the poster campaign for a movie - ideally you want a good image, a memorable title and a catchy strapline that gets you interested in finding out more.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
ECommerce Duplicate content on product pages (eg delivery info, contact details etc)
Hi, Running a Magento site and wanted to check about duplicate page content. We have 1000+ product pages and it has been suggested to remove some of the "duplicated content" which displays on every product page and replace this with an image of the same text content. By this I am talking about content which is for promo/customer purposes and is displayed on every page. eg: "If you find our products cheaper elsewhere then please click below to get your price match...... etc", and a chunk of text for the "Delivery Tab Information" and "Contact Tab Information" on each and every product page. A SEO company has suggested to turn this content into images. Does anyone have thoughts on this please?
On-Page Optimization | | Ampweb0 -
Product titles
Hi guys, I'm starting to sell sofas and furniture online in Australia. Many USA companies just use the key ranking words as the Product Title i.e. "Ultra -Modern black leather sectional sofa with bookcase". Even if they have 100s of products. But in Australia they just use the model name, such as "The York", "The Boston", etc. Cause it does create a nicer picture and a neater look on the main page. I was wondering how important this practice is in improving search ranking? is it spammy? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | cowhidesdirect0 -
To many links on page and penguin
Could to many links on to many pages be a factor that the penguin update would effect your site. I know this is a broad question , but I am curious what people think.
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Too many links
My site index has recently showed up during crawl - with a warning of too many links (885). Should I be adding the no follow tag to this page? Wall Quotes, Vinyl Wall Quotes, Family Sayings, Baby Boy Quotes http://www.enchantingquotes.com/ind.html Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | joziepaige0 -
Internal linking structure
howdy SEO moz people, I had a quick question about internal linking. I am using the WP platform for my website and on one of the widgets I have a category widget that shows all the pages, (on every page). I wanted to know that when if i make a new post or page does it matter if the internal anchor texts are on the content itself or is it suffice to have it on the side bar within the widget? Basically what im asking is does it matter if i have anchor text links on the content itself or is it ok to have it anywhere on the page. and if it does matter to have it on the content, please help out on any suggestions on where to place them. thanks
On-Page Optimization | | david3050 -
Www vs "non" www site addresses and SEO
I first apologize for the lame question title - didn't really know how to word it... I'm having a bit of a conundrum and cannot figure out whats going on, but in the mean time I thought I would ask to see if its hurting my ranking. My site at www.ap-mg.com is built on WordPress using the Thesis them by DIY (just a little upfront info). I am very careful to make sure that all my links are in a particular format i.e. http://www.ap-mg.com - on my site, as well as other sites I have my profile on. My site also used to be hosted on the /home directory until about a month ago. My problem is that when I click on the DA MoxBar link while at my sites homepage, it takes me to Open Explorer, but to ap-mg.com and shows no results - I then add the www to the front of the address and vuala - results. But then the second issue I'm having is then it tells me that my site is redirecting the the /home directory, which its not and I'm still trying to figure that one out. So with all the craziness with my site, www, no www, /home....is this killing any chance of real ranking?
On-Page Optimization | | apmgsmith0 -
Ecommerce
I'm the Marketing Director at a car dealership that is trying to break into online shopping. We have had an internet sales team for about 4 years handling online leads. These leads were generated by forms present on our website. However, I'm trying to step up our production of leads online (we are currently at 1-2%). Here's my problem: The current method that car dealership website developers use, at least the 4 I've utilized, makes all the search pages have duplicate content, and many of the product/car pages have duplicate content (Title, etc.). Is there a way to stop all of these search pages from coming up as duplicate content? My other question is: Our inventory completely refreshes about every two months, what would be the best option for our product web pages? Should I no-index them? 301 redirect to a similar vehicle? Any better options? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ResslerMotors0