Canoncial tag for Similar Product Descriptions on Woocommerce
-
I'm looking for advice on how to handle my product description pages for my website vinylabs.com. The website sells vinyl wrap for cars and each color of vinyl (89 variations) has it's own product page. The product descriptions will all be identical except for the color description and code. All of our competitors have an identical layout, different pages for each color, and it fits the product so I don't want to depart from featuring each color as it's own page.
Here is my dilemma. I don't want to get penalized for duplicate content, however I do want individual color codes to be searchable on google. For example if you google 3M vinyl wrap M203 you'll get individual pages from the manufacturer and our competitors featuring just that color. I want our website to show up as well.
I was thinking about creating a single page that has selectable colors and sizes and then using the canonical tag to point all of my individual color code pages to that single page. However won't that hurt the ability for my individual color code pages to show in search? None of my competitors are using the canonical tag to redirect to a different page.
Any advice welcome! Thank you for your time.
-
I honestly think that Google is aiming to be smart enough to understand that a red widget, green widget and blue widget are really all the same thing in different colors, and that at some point in the near future that kind of nuance will kill the need for 89 mostly duplicate pages. That feels really, really thin to me.
As for getting the words on the page in a way that isn't utter spam, what about serving a photo caption along with a color selection? Making sure your images are appropriately named like "red-widget.png", working the colors in in such a way that they're providing useful context to the image being displayed?
-
That's a really great point, I've been contemplating this as well. Would having all of the different color codes as a drop down be very effective for having those color versions show up in search when somebody googled the color code? Or would it be more effective for SEO to come up with 89 different pages with variations on keywords?
-
Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's the best way to go. Here are my thoughts.
- Doing the same thing as everyone else won't help you stand out.
- One page with multiple color options inherently has more opportunity to be robust content-wise.
- One page with multiple options means all links to that product are pointing at a single page instead of being diffused across too many pages.
- One page with multiple options may actually be a better user experience since the user then doesn't need to leave the page to explore them.
- No more worries about duplicate content!
- Focus on ranking one completely killer page instead of scattering your efforts across lots of so-so pages.
- If you have one amazing page that ranks well for all colors, do the individual pages need to rank at all? Scary to think about not worrying about whether or not a page ranks, but honestly, sometimes that holds people back. If focusing on all means ranking none, is that actually worthwhile?
I honestly think this is worth exploring.
-
Yes, you are right that Google has included this caveat about deceptive and manipulative practices that relate to duplicate content, but that is not a "duplicate content penalty." Merely having the same description for product variations will not get you penalized. That's a common issue with ecommerce websites and isn't the sort of black hat tactic that will incur the wrath of Google.
-
Thank you for the response Laura! This is all great info.
I just started building this website last week so I'm not surprised nothing is appearing in Google Search, I'm not anywhere close to finished. I haven't written the product descriptions yet, but I was planning on writing unique content. I will be writing everything myself from scratch, my concern was duplicate content of my own writing on each page.
You say there is no "penalty" for duplicate content however the below statement is directly from google (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en)
"In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search result" I assume then I can take them at their word that this penalty is only in rare cases of overt manipulation correct?
-
I agree with Laura on this one. If the content of each page is 99% the same as each other (and/or 99% the same as what all your competitors are doing) then you're not going to rank and be found for these products; especially if there is an older, more established brand in your industry. Your best option is really to fill out those pages with more unique content. It can be daunting but you can get them to rank and be found with just a little bit of work. (Trust me on this, I used to work for an ecommerce that had a few hundred products [each with 7-12 micro-variations] that were legitimately the same thing as each other but with a slight color or texture difference at best... you'd be amazed how many ways there are to sell the same thing without duplicating copy.)
Throw together a landscape report, get an idea of all the various core terms in your industry, lay out a plan for what pages will use what term(s) and how, and if you don't have an in-house content writer it wouldn't hurt to look into hiring one (even part time) to get 89+ pages banged out for your site.
-
You are correct in your suspicion. If you canonicalize all of your color pages to the single page, that single page will probably be the only one to show up in search.
The internal duplication isn't really your biggest problem. The bigger problem is external duplicate content. You have the same or very similar product descriptions as other websites. You can't compete with established websites selling the same products with the same product descriptions unless you have an aggressive and well-rounded digital marketing plan. Start by adding unique content to the product pages, which will help with both the internal and external duplicate content.
I also want to address your concern that the website will be penalized for duplicate content. There is no duplicate content "penalty." Rather, when evaluating pages with duplicate content for a given search query, Google will choose the top page(s) to display in SERPs and filter out the rest.
Only a tiny fraction of the pages on your site are actually appearing in Google search results. A search of "site:vinylabs.com" only shows 5 pages in the results. You may have technical issues affecting indexability in addition to duplicate content.
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
-
Domains vs Subdomains for similar brands.
Hi all! I work for a company who have 6 different brands in the same industry targeted at different demographics. Some of them have a lot of history and are well known and respected, others are newer targeted at different price points/ types of people. I've been asked to input on there ongoing web strategy; should they use sub domains or individual branded domains. Previously that had separate brand domains but a new MD wanted to bring everything together into one website. The branded domains were redirected to the new site and it has been going along fine, albeit having lost 1/3rd or so organic traffic. Now a new management team has been brought in and they want to re-structure the website again to put more focus on the brands. Any new website will be on a brand new domain anyway as they are also re branding their main website. What will work better, separate branded domains or sub domains of one website? From what I understand, SEO won't be much different between the two options, but it feels like the bigger historical brands should have individual websites purely from a branding perspective. Thanks for any input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RemarkableAgency0 -
Title tag and user intent
I am just wondering if I create a page that present different e-bike kits and my title tag tag is "the best e-bike kits in 2019", will I rank on "e-bike kits" and "best e-bike kits" or on just "best e-bike kits" ? It seems that user intent can be tricky and sometimes a title tag can make all the difference. How about if I write "Explore Burgundy on a bike tour "to rank on "Burgundy bike tour", will I rank or is the user intent different when I write explore (meaning I am looking for something self guided instead of guided) Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Is it best practice to have a canonical tags on all pages
The website I'm working on has no canonical tags. There is duplicate content so rel=canonicals need adding to certain pages but is it best practice to have a tag on every page ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColesNathan0 -
Question on Indexing, Hreflang tag, Canonical
Dear All, Have a question. We've a client (pharma), who has a prescription medicine approved only in the US, and has only one global site at .com which is accessed by all their target audience all over the world.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jrohwer
For the rest of the US, we can create a replica of the home page (which actually features that drug), minus the existence of the medicine, and set IP filter so that non-US traffic see the duplicate of the home page. Question is, how best to tackle this semi-duplicate page. Possibly no-index won't do because that will block the site from the non-US geography. Hreflang won't work here possibly, because we are not dealing different languages, we are dealing same language (En) but different Geographies. Canonical might be the best way to go? Wanted to have an insight from the experts. Thanks,
Suparno (for Jeff)1 -
Are ALL CAPS construed as spamming if they are used in a meta description tag call to action?
I know this seems like an old school question. As a long time SEO I would never use ALL CAPS in a title tag (unless a brand name is capitalized). However I recently came across a Moz video about creating better calls to action in the meta description tags. Some of the examples had CTAs that were using all caps (i.e. CALL NOW! or LOWEST QUOTES!) I realize there is a debate about the user experience implications. However I'm more concerned about search engines penalizing websites that are using ALL CAPS CTAs in their meta description tags. Any feedback/advice would be appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Migrating to WooCommerce, similar product descriptions but with different urls, cant use variations.
Hi! Ime quite new to SEO and to woocommerce so please help out with this one.. We are migrating from Ithemes Exchange over to WooCommerce and i have come up with some issues. We are selling adhesives and some of the products have the same name and description, the only thing that seperates them are sometimes the widht, or the length on the roll.. As we have it now we have a separate product page for each widht and length. For example here http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2-100/ and here http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2-150/ The above product pages are for a product called Fentrim 2. its availiable in widhts from 75 to 300mm.. so, its six diffent products pages with more or less the same description. I get that this will create duplicate content, couse the description on the pages are similar.. We cant use variations in woocommerce, couse this cant be set up to exactly match our shipping needs, so, we need them on separate pages.. Soo, my plan is to set a new product page for Fentrim 2, ex http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2 and then set that url as canonical url for the variations of the product.. Am i on the right track? Gratefull for any help on this one! / Jonas
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knubbz1 -
Question about structuring @id schema tags
We are using JSON-LD to apply schema. My colleague had question about applying @id tags in the schema parent lists: While implementing schema, we've included @id as a parameter to both the "list" child of "ListItem" of a "BreadcrumbList" - on the same schema, we've added an @id parameter to mainContentOfPage and both @id parameters are set to the pages URL. Having this @id in both places is giving schema checker results that have the child elements of "mainContentOfPage" appearing under the "list" item. Questions: is this good or bad? Where should @id be used? What should @id be set to? Thanks for the insight!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Wordpress Tag Pages - NoIndex?
Hi there. I am using Yoast Wordpress Plugin. I just wonder if any test have been done around the effects of Index vs Noindex for Tag Pages? ( like when tagging a word relevant to an article ) Thanks 🙂 Martin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0