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
-
4000 new duplicate products on our ecommerce site, potential impact?
Hello, We've currently got 9500 products live on our site at the moment with ~2000 in this category that we're adding the new products in. All of these products we're adding are coming from a site that we own and we're trying to expand the range on our site (the 9500 product site has a lot more visitors than the 4000 product site). However, all these products imported I believe are atleast duplicates from the 4000 product site, but the first ones I have seen (500) are manufacturer duplicates. What issues are we potentially going to run in to? Just for extra information: We have no control over canonical/noindex/robots etc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThomasHarvey0 -
GWT, Editing URL Parameters for Ecommerce Features
I have had the setting of "let googlebot decide" on managing my URL parameters on an Ecommerce site in Magento. The products I sell come in different sizes and colors and finishes etc. These parameters are showing up in Google Webmaster Tools and set for "let googlebot decide". Some of them have as many as 8 million urls monitored. I changed the editing option to clam these parameters as "narrow searches", but still left the option to "let googlebot decide" (versus block urls). Will blocking these erroneous urls serve any benefit? Does blocking these help with the crawl/seo?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nat88han0 -
How to Have Flat Navigation w/out Diluting Link Juice
I have a client with a very flat navigational structure relying on a menu with CSS hover dropdowns using simple items to get to just about every page on the site through the main navigation on every page. They want this ability to remain. The issue is stat is send link juice all over and does not concentrate into pages that are key search landing pages. I don't want to "no Index" "follow" the less important pages since there are some brand related long tail searches that I would want these pages found. These are useful pages to consumers who are already engaged with the brand, but not ones we would not care to rank for outside of branded search. If there was a way to have some links be non-crawled via javascript (or some other method) and those that are more important use a more standard html type link that would seem ideal. Does anyone have a suggestion for menu tool or technique for exposing to consumers all the links to consumers but restricting google bot's path while being in line with Google Webmaster guideslines? Blair
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BlairKuhnen0 -
Should eCommerce Canonicalize to CMS
We have inherited a site that has a Joomla CMS "showroom" front-end and a Magento "store room" for check out etc. Question - As the site's main pages are in the CMS section should we: make all Magento product pages canonical to the main sections/product pages within the CMS (even though there are no duplicate content issues) "No index" the product pages Index but indicate low page value in sitemap Do something else? 🙂 Thanks for any and all input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheNorthernOffice790 -
Ecommerce Duplicate Product Descriptions across 3 websites
Hi, We are an e commerce company that has our own domain but also sell the same products on eBay and Amazon. What is the feeling on the same exact descriptions being used on different platforms? Do they count as duplicate content? Will our domain be punished/penalised as our domain does not have as much authority as EBay or Amazon? We have over 5,000 products with our own hand written product descriptions. We want our website to be the main place/ have priority over the above market places. What's the best suggestion/solution? thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Roy19730 -
Wordpress Photography Site + eCommerce Plugin
Anyone know of good photography sites set up on Wordpress with an eCommerce plugin used for selling photos or services? Just looking for ideas. I've found good referrals in the Moz archives for Wordpress eCommerce plugins. Now I'm looking for WP photography sites employing eCommerce. Thanks for sharing.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0 -
Best Format for URLs on large Ecommerce Site?
I saw this article, http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/common-ecommerce-technical-seo-problems/, and noticed that Geoff mentioned that product URLs format should be in one of the following ways: Product Page: site.com/product-name Product Page: site.com/category/sub-category/product-name However, for SEO, is there a preferred way? I understand that the top one may be better to prevent duplicate page issues, but I would imagine that the bottom would be better for conversion (maybe the user backtracks to site.com/category/sub-category/ to see other products that he may be interested in). Also, I'd imagine that the top URL would not be a great way to distribute link juice since everything would be attached to the root, right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eTundra0 -
Internal Search / Faceted Navigation
Hi there, I'm working on an e-learning site with the following content pages: main page, category pages, course pages, author pages, tag pages. We will also have an internal search for users to search by keyword for courses & authors & categories. Is it still recommend to "noindex, follow" and disallow in robots.txt internal search results? Or for a site like this, is it better to use faceted navigation? It seems that faceted navigation is mostly for e-commerce sites. What is the latest thinking on SEO best practices for internal search result pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0