Category descriptions and magento
-
Hi
Any eCommerce experts out there, please? I run a magento store and am looking to improve the performance of my category pages in the listings, to aid this I have created category descriptions - a hundred or so words about what, for example, a Maxi Dress is, an example can be seen here http:// yochic.co.uk/dress-267864/ maxi.html (I have broken the link as not sure on the linking policy of the forum).
I have noticed, however, that this category description is appearing all on sub pages of the section, so it is on page 1,2,3,4 etc. Is this likely to lead to me receiving a penalty for internal duplicate content?
The store uses rel="next" in all the category pages, so shouldn't that help limit any problems caused by the duplication of the page descriptions? I notice that when I search for a sub page, 2, 3, 4 etc in Google using the url of page two http://yochic.co.uk/dress-267864/maxi.html?p=2 it returns the first page, so am i right in thinking with the tags that Google sees all the sub pages as being page one.
In which case, doesn't that limit my ability to rank for the products listed on pages 2+? Long story short, the site cannot rank it's product pages because the vast majority of the product descriptions are 100% duplicate because the site is an affiliate fashion store.
Many thanks
Carl
-
Hello Carl,
I tried to access those pages but didn't find anything on those URLs even after fixing them.
The rel next/prev is being used properly for the issue you're having.
I think the bigger issue is that you say all of your product descriptions are duplicates of any other site using the same affiliate feed. That is a big no-no and I don't think relying on category pages to rank for product searches is a good business plan. I hate to say it, but these types of sites really just don't do very well these days.
Nevertheless, your question was about the paginated URLs and I think the rel next/prev has you covered there. If you are more worried about it you can use a rel = canonical tag to ensure the first page in the series is seen as the canonical version.
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
-
Are descriptive titles better?
I'm thinking about changing the page titles on my website and wanted to know if it is a good idea to help improve SEO! Using a page 'training and engagement' as an example (as is on the dropdown), the page title itself is actually 'Providing the skills to make the change stick.' Is that long descriptive title negatively effecting me? Or should I change it to 'Training and Engagement'? Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 Sam
On-Page Optimization | | sammecooper0 -
I have updated title 4 days ago but still still showing old title and description on Google serps, How to resolve it?
I have updated the title tag but not showing, Please have look at the view source for this website- https://m.yolobus.in/ I want to show this title and description- <title>Online Bus Ticket Booking | YoloBus India</title> But showing the wrong title and description on google SERP- Title - YoloBus :: Home Description - Delhi Lucknow; Lucknow Delhi; Delhi Gorakhpur; Varanasi Lucknow; Gorakhpur Delhi; Delhi Delhi; Bangalore Bangalore; Manali Manali; Chennai Chennai 7mHsdmu
On-Page Optimization | | AnkitS.19900 -
Products and Services - Reselling - What about the description?
Hi, Let say there is a company which resell products and services of other companies. What do you think should be the strategy for putting the description of every service/product? 1. Should I copy the text from the original website and paste it on my page. In this case we get a website that has a lot of copied content, although it is a valid content. I notice that this is quite popular practice with local distributors who sell products of other (multinational) companies. If so, should I rel=canonical to the original product? But than I wouldn't rank for this product on local market right? 2. Should I come up with original descriptions? Would that give me and advantage over the websites that have copied the description from other pages? Appreciate your answer!
On-Page Optimization | | LeszekNowakowski0 -
Page Title & Meta Description Getting Cut Off In The SERPs
Hi Guys, I am trying to figure out why my page titles and meta d tags are getting cut off in Goofle SERPS. My page titles are 70 characters or under (including spaces) and my meta Dd's are 155 characters or under (including spaces) so I cannot work out why They are getting cut off. Is there something I have missed?! Thanks, Meaghan
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Best practice for footer in ecommerce - Shall I add Top Category links?
What would you recommend regarding links to "Top Products" and "Top Categories" in footer? Would you add them to give extra link juice to top categories? would you try to avoid category links in footer that are already in the header navigationor in the main content area to avoid linking twice from all pages? would you vary these top category links in footer according to main category
On-Page Optimization | | lcourse0 -
Ecommerce- Keyword use in Product links on Category page
I'm wondering how Keyword use in Product links on Category pages can affect a pages rank? I have 1 site where this seems to be an issue but not on all categories. For this site, a site: keyword search ranks the category page as no.1 in the SERPS but a non-site: search shows 1 of the many products within the category as the highest ranking page (currently 20 in google) on this site. This product is probably the least likely to generate a conversion due to it's cost so this is less than ideal. The plural search of the keyword shows the category page and it ranks higher than the keyword itself (currently 9 in google) Category name and URL = keyword. The category is paginated with 12 products per page. Product URL and anchor text is brand-model-type (where type = keyword) I'd like to keep the product URLs and anchors as they are if I can as they are well searched terms themselves but I want to optimize a category page to rank for the keyword itself. Have any of you overcome a similar issue? Would adding more text to the category page dilute the issue?
On-Page Optimization | | MarcOZ0 -
Page titles and descriptions
A website has several wigets to show Each wiget with its own page The wigets mostly just vary in size How would you suggest titles be done? Example: Wiget 1ft Wiget 2ft Wiget 3 ft an so on........ Would this trigger a duplicate content issue given “Wiget” leads in the page title?
On-Page Optimization | | APICDA0 -
Should I noindex both category and tag archive pages if I have an excerpt format?
I am creating a blog and want to know if I should noindex archives for categories and tags. I changed the format of my blog to excerpts to prevent duplicate content, but I want to make sure I also need to noindex those pages. Please help!
On-Page Optimization | | lwilkins1