undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. Digital Marketing
  3. Web Design
  4. E-Commerce Website Architecture - Cannibalization between Product Categories and Blog Categories?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

E-Commerce Website Architecture - Cannibalization between Product Categories and Blog Categories?

Web Design
3
7
1.5k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • BeytzNet
    BeytzNet last edited by Sep 30, 2013, 3:16 AM

    Hi,

    I have an e-commerce site that sells laptops.

    My main landing pages and category pages are as follows:
    "Toshiba Laptops", "Samsung Laptops", etc.

    We also run a WP blog with industry news.
    The posts are divided into categories which are basically as our landing pages.
    The posts themselves usually link to the appropriate e-commerce landing page.
    For example: a post about a new Samsung Laptop which is categorized in the blog under "Samsung Laptops" will naturally link somewhere inside to the "samsung laptops" ecommerce landing page.

    Is that good or do the categories on the blog cannibalize my more important e-commerce section landing pages?

    Thanks

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • MikeRoberts
      MikeRoberts @BeytzNet last edited by Oct 2, 2013, 11:16 AM Oct 2, 2013, 11:16 AM

      I do often agree with your assessment and perhaps I should have worded it as "you might want to consider" instead of "make sure".

      Its because in certain circumstances, having a blog post about something like "5 Reasons the New Toshiba Laptop is Awesome" with a link to your ecommerce page selling the product could be considered a paid link or the post may be seen as an advertorial. Because you sell laptops and you're writing a blog post about laptops that includes a link to the sale of laptops on your own site, there is concern it _migh_t be devalued especially after all the news concerning press release links and advertorials in recent months.

      Of course, much of this is conjecture and the more I think about it the more it would seem that the people I've seen concerned about being hit for something like that are people that have been doing other, more sketchy things.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • matbennett
        matbennett @BeytzNet last edited by Oct 2, 2013, 5:46 AM Oct 2, 2013, 5:46 AM

        No problem.  This isn't the clearest example of what I am talking about, but it was the one that I had open in a tab when I got the email notification of your question!

        http://www.backcountry.com/3-season-tents

        The top of that page has three guides.  There are three more at the bottom.  Those guides are in a place where customers are more likely to see/use them. That makes sense as they are also great sales tools. Those that open in a modal window for that page also mean that the category page becomes the page that attracts links rather than the blog page.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • BeytzNet
          BeytzNet @matbennett last edited by Oct 2, 2013, 5:39 AM Oct 2, 2013, 5:39 AM

          Thanks Mat for the reply.

          I didn't quite understand what you meant... Can you provide an example of an e-commerce site you feel that implements it well? (doesn't need to be one related to you).

          Thanks

          matbennett 1 Reply Last reply Oct 2, 2013, 5:46 AM Reply Quote 0
          • BeytzNet
            BeytzNet @MikeRoberts last edited by Oct 2, 2013, 5:37 AM Oct 2, 2013, 5:37 AM

            Your ending was hilarious:

            "hurt you depending on Google guidelines for the given month/week/day"

            About nofollow and violating Google:
            I think that having a call to action at the end of every post is legit and obvious (for example at the end of "Toshiba Laptops" post having a "Looking for a Toshiba Laptop?" button). It doesn't make sense to me nofollowing it. Doing so will only waste the juice I'm nofollowing - Google stated that no following links that not pass over more juice on the others, it simply wastes it.

            Look at Hubspot's blog for example, at the end of each post they offer an ebook or something. All of the links are followed.

            What do you think?

            MikeRoberts 1 Reply Last reply Oct 2, 2013, 11:16 AM Reply Quote 0
            • MikeRoberts
              MikeRoberts @matbennett last edited by Sep 30, 2013, 2:26 PM Sep 30, 2013, 2:26 PM

              I've always been more of an "if they cannibalized then cross-link" type of person, followed up with a hint of "tweak accordingly". If our blogs are ranking well for something and drawing in more people than the actual product page, it could be that more people are just looking for information and not necessarily purchasing... of course there's the AIDA conversion funnel to consider as well. Why not make sure there is a prominent link/call to action that users can follow once they're done digesting the info so then they can look at the product page and (hopefully) convert? And make sure the link is NoFollow or it could be seen as unnatural and/or inadvertently hurt you depending on Google guidelines for the given month/week/day.

              BeytzNet 1 Reply Last reply Oct 2, 2013, 5:37 AM Reply Quote 0
              • matbennett
                matbennett last edited by Sep 30, 2013, 4:46 AM Sep 30, 2013, 4:46 AM

                Your structure is probably the most common.  As you say though, you do risk cannibalising your own results.  You could no-index the blog categories.

                My preferred approach is to have blog and store more closely integrated.  This can allow you to do away with blog category pages entirely, and have those as part of the e-commerce category. Bringing the content closer to the products brings a number of benefits in terms of both SEO and Conversions.  It also results in much richer category pages which can be another big win.

                MikeRoberts BeytzNet 2 Replies Last reply Oct 2, 2013, 5:39 AM Reply Quote 0
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • laurentjb

                  What type of website is best for seo.

                  website

                  I need a new website for my health insurance business. What type is best for SEO? Many thanks

                  Web Design | Oct 24, 2024, 1:25 AM | laurentjb
                  1
                • Jessdyl

                  Should I move my blog from subdomain to subdirectory?

                  Hi there, We have a pretty strong organic presence on our consumer facing blog. Around 5.7 million organic clicks Year to Date. It's currently housed in Wordpress on a subdomain. Our team is considering migrating our blog from Wordpress to Sitecore, where our parent organization resides. With that consideration, we're trying to determine if we should preserve the subdomain or move to a subdirectory of the parent brand. Moving to the parent brand would also result in a loss of our custom global nav - we would inherit the global nav of the parent website. We're not concerned about traffic loss risk - we know that we'll lose some but we think the move to subdirectory might be more beneficial in the long run from an SEO perspective. We're mostly concerned about the users getting lost without the global nav specific to the blog. Thoughts/concerns? Thank you!

                  Web Design | Sep 11, 2020, 12:13 PM | Jessdyl
                  0
                • vtmoz

                  Does the blog widget with latest blog-posts at homepage helps in SEO?

                  Hi all, We are planning to add a widget at our website homepage which displays recent blog-posts with dates. Google favours new and latest content. So will these consistent new posts help in improving website ranking? Thanks

                  Web Design | Aug 23, 2017, 10:46 AM | vtmoz
                  0
                • Brando16

                  What is the best way to handle annual events on a website?

                  Every year our company has a user conference with between 300 - 400 attendees. I've just begun giving the event more of a presence on our website. I'm wondering, what is the best way to handle highlights from previous years? Would it be to create an archive (e.g. www.companyname.com/eventname/2015) while constantly updating the main landing page to promote the current event? We also use an event website (cvent) to handle our registrations. So once we have an agenda for the current years event I do a temporary redirect from the main landing page to the registration website. I don't really like this practice and I feel like it might be better to keep all of the info on the main domain. Wondering if anybody has any opinions or feedback on that process as well. Just looking for best practices or what others have done and have had success with.

                  Web Design | Jul 19, 2016, 10:21 AM | Brando16
                  1
                • JustinMurray

                  WordPress Category page title h1 or h2

                  Hi friends, I know this is a minor technical change, but we are in an extremely competitive market and I don't want to have any points against us. On our WordPress Category pages i.e. http://www.domain.com/category/�tegory-title%/ I looked at the code behind the the Title of the category page, which is "Browsing: %Category Title%" The code is an h2. I look at the posts in the category archive below, and those are also h2's. The theme preview is here and you can click on Entertainment - Reviews to see exactly what I'm referring to - http://themeforest.net/item/smartmag-responsive-retina-wordpress-magazine/full_screen_preview/6652608 I changed the code for the "Browsing: %Category Title%" to h1, which I believe is more consistent and standard formatting. 1. Is this a correct technical on-page optimization? 2. Would it be beneficial to remove "Browsing"?

                  Web Design | Nov 8, 2015, 3:57 PM | JustinMurray
                  0
                • ScottMcPherson

                  Will google penalize a website for using a table layout?

                  I just got a new client today and his entire website layout and structure is using tables instead of divs. This client is on a tight budget and wants to avoid unnecessary hours for re-coding the website, but at the same time he wants me to improve his SEO organically. This is the first time I've been asked to do work on an existing website that uses pure tables for the entire layout and I'm wondering if this effects the SEO in any way. So my question is, will tables effect rankings and SEO in any way?

                  Web Design | Jun 13, 2013, 3:49 AM | ScottMcPherson
                  0
                • RPD

                  Does having a Blog link in the top level navigation provide any better SEO value, or would having it in a footer or top navigation work just as good?

                  Trying to decide on whether placing a link to the blog in our top level navigation would have a better SEO value than just placing it in top or footer navigation. I have an ecommerce site.

                  Web Design | Jun 10, 2013, 3:23 PM | RPD
                  0
                • eseyo

                  Site-wide footer links or single "website credits" page?

                  I see that you have already answered this question before back in 2007 (http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/2163), but wanted to ask your current opinion on the same question: Should I add a site-wide footer link to my client websites pointing to my website, or should I create a "website credits" page on my clients site, add this to the footer and then link from within this page out to my website?

                  Web Design | Apr 14, 2011, 11:21 AM | eseyo
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.