What is the Ideal Structure for User Generated Product Reviews on My Site?
-
I apologize for the lengthy post, but I need help!
Here is my current structure for product reviews:
My product pages displays a set number of user product reviews before displaying a link to "see all reviews". So:
Has product details, specs (usually generic from manufacturer) and 5 user product reviews. If there are more than 5, there is a link to see all reviews:
Where each page would display 10 user product reviews, and paginate until all user reviews are displayed.
I am thinking about using the Rel Canonical tag on the paginated reviews pages to reference back to the main product page. So:
Would have the canonical URL of:
Does this structure make sense? I'm unclear what strategy I should use, but currently the product review pages account for less than 2% of overall organic traffic.
Thanks ahead of time!
-
Thanks for the input Marcus!
-
Hey Will
If your current product page has variations but only varies based on the reviews it is showing then there is not really anything unique (bar the reviews) on these pages and the main content (product details) is the same.
Maybe something like what Amazon does:
1. Main Product page with some reviews or snippets
2. Reviews page (dynamic) which the primary content is the reviews
Then, the different review pages can rank on their own merit and all that user generated content does not go to waste.
You could use a static URL for your product page and a dynamic URL for your reviews page so it would be something like this:
/category/product-name.html
/category/product-name/reviews/?page=1
/category/product-name/reviews/?page=2
/category/product-name/reviews/?page=3
etcCheck out these amazon links:
product:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Dragon-Tattoo-Millennium-Trilogy/dp/1847242537The amazon links are a bit crazy, but it is a sound concept overall.
Hope it helps!
Marcus
-
Hi Marcus,
Perhaps I'll need a few glasses myself to decipher your message?
I kid I kid.
I believe the structure you are referring to is what I currently have. The main product page, and additional pages with paginated user reviews. The only difference is your example list static URLs for the paginated reviews vs using a page # parameter as I have.
And could you please clarify:
"if you use rel canonical back to your main product page you are losing the benefit of all of those additional reviews."
What would happen in a scenario such as:
- I'm a spider, crawling through your product review pages
- On the 2nd page, a very nice, useful, thorough product review
- That 2nd page rel canonicals back to the main product page
- There is a SE query matching the 2nd page product review exactly
Would the main product page be listed on the SERPs, or since there was a rel canonical URL of the main product page, it poofs and disappears altogether?
-
Hmm, it's a tricky one but surely, if you use rel canonical back to your main product page you are losing the benefit of all of those additional reviews.
Just spitballing here but would it not be better to have the main product page with the first five or so reviews on and then create unique, paginated pages for the product reviews with a summary of the product details (so the reviews were the primary content).
So, we would have
product-name.html
product-name-reviews-page1.html
product-name-reviews-page2.htmlThis way, you get lots of nice long tail potential from the additional review pages that summarise the product, show the unique reviews and make it VERY easy to link back to the main product page to buy?
Seems a shame to have loads of great user generated reviews and then stop yourself ranking for them. Just make the purpose of the page clear as reviews of and the path to the main page very clear so user A with concern X can have his fears allayed and click through to buy.
Had a few glasses of wine, so hope, that makes sense.
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
-
The review stars for my ecommerce site in the organic search disappeared, how can I have them shown again?
We run www.prams.net, an ecommerce store for strollers and other baby products out of the Uk. We always followed schema and the stars appeared in our product snippets in the organic search, helping us a lot. A couple of weeks ago the stars stopped appearing. When I do the site:www.prams.net they appear but not in the search results anymore. We have a french site as well. www.poussette.com, their it still works. Has anybody got tips what we can do to make the stars appear again? Thanks in advance. Dieter Lang
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Storesco0 -
SSL providers? Any reviews?
Hello, Does anyone have any recommendations on good SSL providers? We are looking for 2 levels - cheap ones we can use for our clients (and potentially EV ones) and secure ones we can use where needed. I am not sure if there are any cheap and secure ones or if this a contradiction. I await everyone's input and recommendations. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK1 -
How is my 301 redirected site stealing rankings from the main site?
Hello, I have a site, drhobelt.com, that 301 redirects to the main site, drhonow.com. Not only is drhobelt.com still indexed, but it recently stole rankings from drhonow.com for "decompression belt" related terms. What could be causing this? How do I reclaim the rankings for drhonow.com? Thanks for reading!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Should discontinued crusty old products (but still new stock) be listed on site?
Some may think this is not good to do for us, because it tarnishes the image of the site as being: "These guys are pawing off old stuff and not carrying up to date products. It would be a waste of our time to try to sell it off of our site." ... even though 89% of are items are new and up to date products. (My feelings on this would be the opposite: I want all the old crusty stuff up there because it makes it available to a much bigger market area.... called "The World". lol! To me, if it's not moving in our market, it means we bought the wrong item for our market and we need to offer it up to "The World". Maybe I'm way off here, but are there any other spins on thoughts on this? ) Thanks, Kevin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kevin_McLeish0 -
Sitemap for SmartPhone site
Hello I have a smartphone site (e.g.m.abc.com). To my understanding we do not need a mobile sitemap as its not a traditional mobile site. Shall I add those mobile site links in my regular www XML sitemap or not bother to add the links as we already have rel = canonical (on m.abc.com ) and rel= alternate in place (on www site) to respective pages. Please suggests a solution. I really look forward to an answer as I haven't found the "official" answer to this question anywhere.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdobeVAS0 -
Should I noindex the site search page? It is generating 4% of my organic traffic.
I read about some recommendations to noindex the URL of the site search.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
Checked in analytics that site search URL generated about 4% of my total organic search traffic (<2% of sales). My reasoning is that site search may generate duplicated content issues and may prevent the more relevant product or category pages from showing up instead. Would you noindex this page or not? Any thoughts?0 -
Outreach to bloggers for product reviews. All at once or stretched over time?
We have identified about 150 bloggers in our niche worldwide and want to send them a free product sample for a review on their blog. From former similar promotion we know that actually the vast majority will accept. Would you send the proposal at once to all bloggers or just contact lets say 5 per week over 6 months? Do you think it is better to vary the products to be reviewed instead of sending all the exact same product model? Not sure how bloggers will like it if they notice that we made the same proposal to every blogger and that on all blogs in our niche about the same time suddenly reviews of same products appear? Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Seo flash site
Hey. Would hear whether it is possible to SEO a website which is flash site cms?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Agger0