Techniques to fix eCommerce faceted navigation
-
Hi everyone,
I've read a lot about different techniques to fix duplicate content problems caused by eCommerce faceted navigation (e.g. redundant URL combinations of colors, sizes, etc.). From what I've seen suggested methods include using AJAX or JavaScript to make the links functional for users only and prevent bots from crawling through them.
I was wondering if this technique would work instead?
If we detect that the user is a robot, instead of displaying a link, we simply display its anchor text.
So what would be for a human
COLOR
< li > < a href = red >red < /a > < /li >
< li > < a href = blue>blue < /a > < /li >Would be for a robot
COLOR
< li > red < /li >
< li > blue < /li >Any reason I shouldn't do this?
Thanks!
*** edit
Another reason to fix this is crawl budget since robots can waste their time going through every possible combination of facet. This is also something I'm looking to fix.
-
I share Alan's hesitation - it could look like cloaking, especially if a bot is making the call. If the pages aren't indexed yet, you could just "nofollow" the links - it sends the same signal transparently.
Home Depot is probably pulling it off with the AJAX/JS implementation, which is a bit harder for Google to parse. They also have a massive authority and link profile, so they can always squeak the small stuff by. You might not be so lucky. In general, it's best to stick to the standard practices and not get too tricky.
-
I've been browsing sites looking at what the big players are doing
Homedepot.com seems to be doing exactly this; if you go to
And you click a facet to narrow the result, the page is refreshed via AJAX
If you go to the same page with a Googlebot user agent, even with JavaScript enabled, clicking the checkbox does nothing!
Is this cloaking? Why is this legit?
-
But is it really cloaking? We wouldn't be showing different content. Just disabling links. This article describes a technique that's more akin to cloaking and justifies it because of "intent": http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/dealing-with-faceted-navigation-a-case-study.
The problem with canonical is that the robots will still waste crawl budget going through all the combinations of facets we have. We have hundreds of categories with complex products with 10+ facets with 10+ options each...
-
That would be cloaking, best not do that
A canonical tag would be best, thats what they are for
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
-
Navigation Menu - Whats too much
Ive always had pages set up for a lot of our products and had these in the navigation menu. For instance we sell Solar Control Window Film which helps with heat, glare and UV. We then have a navigation menu something like this: Solar Window Film
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fozzy1609
Heat Control window Films
Anti glare window film
UV window film
etc etc Ihave this for all my services and products. I have unique content on each. My question is this. Would I be better having the naviation menu with links to all the seperate services we offer
OR
Should I have it linking to the main services and then the related services from within the page> For example Ill have just Solar Window Film in the navigation and then on the page it would internally link to the heat related section and the glare related section etc. Im wondering whether my sub pages would suffer because theyre not linked to from every page with the second method or whether it would help in some way0 -
Is rel=prev/next necessary for ecommerce?
We are currently not using rel=prev/next for paginated categories. My predecessor instead canonicaled paginated pages back to the parent. This obviously needs to be fixed. The pages should self-canonical. Is using the parameter handling function of Google Search Console enough, or do we need to have our dev team implement rel=prev/next?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Satans_Apprentice0 -
How can I stop my facets being crawled?
Hi If my facets are being crawled, how can I stop this? Or set them up so they are SEO friendly - this is new to me as I haven't had to deal with lots of facets in the past. Here's an example of a page on the site - https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/lift-tables Here's an example of a facet URL - https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/lift-tables#facet:-1002779711011711697110,-700000000000001001651484832107103,-700000000000001057452564832109109&productBeginIndex:0&orderBy:5&pageView:list& I've been trying to read up on URL parameters etc, I'm new to it so it's taking some time to understand Any advice would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Is there anything I need to worry about if... We show/hide header navigation based upon visit from external traffic?
Scenario: So imagine if LinkedIn turned off their main navigation/header if you landed on your personal profile via a search engine or via an external link. But if you were on LinkedIn when you found it, the navigation remains the same.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mysitesrock0 -
Dynamic pages - ecommerce product pages
Hi guys, Before I dive into my question, let me give you some background.. I manage an ecommerce site and we're got thousands of product pages. The pages contain dynamic blocks and information in these blocks are fed by another system. So in a nutshell, our product team enters the data in a software and boom, the information is generated in these page blocks. But that's not all, these pages then redirect to a duplicate version with a custom URL. This is cached and this is what the end user sees. This was done to speed up load, rather than the system generate a dynamic page on the fly, the cache page is loaded and the user sees it super fast. Another benefit happened as well, after going live with the cached pages, they started getting indexed and ranking in Google. The problem is that, the redirect to the duplicate cached page isn't a permanent one, it's a meta refresh, a 302 that happens in a second. So yeah, I've got 302s kicking about. The development team can set up 301 but then there won't be any caching, pages will just load dynamically. Google records pages that are cached but does it cache a dynamic page though? Without a cached page, I'm wondering if I would drop in traffic. The view source might just show a list of dynamic blocks, no content! How would you tackle this? I've already setup canonical tags on the cached pages but removing cache.. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
How to Build High Quality eCommerce Web Site during Low Quality Web Pages?
Today, I was reading Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: More guidance on building high-quality sites. I found one interesting statement over there. Low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings. Why should I like to discuss on this topic? Because, I have made big change on my website via narrow by search. I want to give specific result to know more about it. This is my category page: http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas Left narrow by search section is creating accurate page for specific attribute products. California Umbrella:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/manufacturer-california-umbrella From above page following page is accessible. http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-shape-search-octagonal/manufacturer-california-umbrella Sunbrella Patio Umbrellas:
http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-fabric-search-sunbrella Similar story for this page. Following page can accessible from above page. http://www.vistastores.com/patio-umbrellas/shopby/canopy-fabric-search-sunbrella/finish-search-wood My website have 100+ categories, 11,000 products. I have checked indexed pages in Google for my website. https://www.google.com/search?q=info%3Awww.vistastores.com&pws=0&gl=US#hl=en&safe=off&pws=0&gl=US&q=site:www.vistastores.com&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=910893d99351c8f7&biw=1366&bih=547 It shows me 35,000+ crawled pages which are developed by left navigation section. So, Will it consider as low quality pages? I want to improve my website performance without delete these pages.0 -
Linkbuilding External Ecommerce
Hi there, I am new in Link Building external, I want some help of you guys! I would like to learn about the best ways to do link building for Ecommerce. Can u help me, please? Thank You!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fabricio_Sahdo0 -
What <h>Tag to Use For Global Navigation</h>
I've read several blogs discussing how including more than one H1 per page is a serious no no. However, what is the most effective <h>tag to use for your global navigation system. Or should it not be an <h>tag period?</h></h>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | calin_daniel0