Canonical category pages
-
A couple of years ago I used to receive a lot of traffic via my category pages but now I don't receive as much, in the past year I've modified the category pages to canonical.
I have 15 genres for the category pages, other than the most recent sorting there is no sorting available for the users on the cat pages, a recent image link added can over time drop off to page 2 of the category page, for example
mysite.com/cat-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-23. New image link can drop off to page 2.
mysite.com/dog-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-53. New image link can drop off to page 2.
mysite.com/turtle-page1.html = 100 image links per page with numbered page navigation, number of cat pages 1-2. New image link can drop off to page 2.
Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html
One thing that I have noticed is the unique popup short description tooltips that I have on the image links only appears in google for the first pages of each category page, it seems to ignore the other pages. In view of this am I right in applying canonical ref or just treating it as normal pages.?
thanks
-
I'm going to have to hold off on this google have done an update today which is why we've now dropped from p4 to p14. I've posted a message here
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en&start=1360
-
No Problem - Keep us posted!
-
thanks Damien
I'm going to give this a go once my website re-appears in the search engine. After 1.5 years at number four it's decided to disappear today. I think google anticipated what I was intending to do and employed their new jedi mind tricks to de-rank me. I'll see what tommorow brings.
have a good one.
-
This is because you've canonicalised all pages that come from that page.
E.G.
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
This is telling Google to look at your pages but if possible index ONLY the cat-page1 as you've recommended it in your canonical tag. If you want the other pages to rank you're going to have to remove the canonical tag.
You could also change the canonical tag to:
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page2.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page3.html
This will enable you to add any variable you wish on the end (if you need to) without duplicating the content on a different URL in Google's eyes.
For a test try just changing the canonical tag on the 2nd category page and see what happens.
Hope this helps
DD
-
Hi
All 100 image links on each category page are unique that each point to their respective unique pages. The only thing, is that as new image links get added to the top it can push older content onto page 2,3,4 etc. So I would say each category page is unique.
This isn't what I wanted, I've left it for so long (over a year). It's ever since google introduced that parameter thing, I used to have parameters in the urls but I've fixed that along time ago to .html pages.
Yes the pages on category page 2,3,4 etc used to rank before, but now the 2nd and subsequent pages aren't in the index. In fact if you google the 2nd, third or 4th category pages it brings up the first category page.
thanks
-
Hey,
So you've set it up so that only your first category page will be indexed as it basically saying all the other pages (pg 2, 3 etc) are the same/maybe slightly different.
Is this what you wanted? Also, did those pg 2 and so on rank before you implemented the canonical tag?
DD
-
Hi
on each subsequent category page it refers to the first category page
eg
/cat-page1.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page2.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
/cat-page3.html has rel=canonical /cat-page1.html
etc
thanks
-
Hmm... let me clarify this you say:
Now on the first page (eg mysite.com/cat-page1.html) I've set this up to rel= canonical = mysite.com/cat-page1.html
what about the each subsequent page (... | 2 | 3 | 4... ) what is their canonical value?
-
Hi
So should I revert to the non canonical page structure and leave it natural?
I also forgot to mention that on the homepage I have a box of recent image links that will also appear on the each of category pages. I don't know if google sees these as duplicate links.
thanks
-
I have noticed exactly the same behavior by Google. They're trying to promote the end page, not the category - even when this is not useful (I think they have a bit of work to do still). If this was my site through I would not tamper with the natural structure of the site but feature key products and pages from pages higher up in the site's hierarchy.
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
-
Webshop landing pages and product pages
Hi, I am doing extensive keyword research for the SEO of a big webshop. Since this shop sells technical books and software (legal books, tax software and so on), I come across a lot of very specific keywords for separate products. Isn't it better to try and rank in the SERP's with all the separate product pages, instead of with the landing (category) pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mat_C0 -
Ecommerce category pages & improving rankings
Hi Moz 🙂 I work on an ecommerce site & am getting stuck with how to improve rankings on category pages. I have a competitor who writes loads of content for their category pages under tabs & they perform very well. The content isn't particularly helpful, more about their range and what they offer. I have tested adding similar content under a tab to some of our category pages - with some performing well & others not as well. I know this isn't ideal, and I'd like some help with an alternative. Does anyone have tips on improving rankings on category pages? I don't have much control on the layout, this is controlled by our parent company which restricts us. I am researching writing user guides, but these will be on other pages not directly on the category page & the way we have to add them is a lot of manual work for our webmaster, so I can't get them up as quickly as I'd like. I have seen REI have a small bit of content at the top of their pages that link to guides e.g - https://www.rei.com/c/static-and-rescue-ropes But obviously their domain authority is so high already, that they don't need as much help as me 🙂 At the moment I have some new Chair pages I need to rank, these are competitive and any ideas would be great 🙂 Here are some examples: http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/ergonomic-office-chairs http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/executive-office-chairs Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
How should I deal with this page?
Hey Mozzers, I was looking for a little guidance and advice regarding a couple of pages on my website. I have used 'shoes' for this example. I have the current structure Parent Category - Shoes Sub Categories - Blue Shoes
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ATP
Hard Shoes
Soft Shoes
Big Shoes etc Supporting Article - Different Types of Shoe and Their Uses There are about 12 subcategories in total - each one links back to the Parent Category with the keyword "Shoes". Every sub category has gone from ranking 50+ to 10-30th for its main keyword which is a good start and as I release supporting articles im sure each one will climb. I am happy with this. The Article ranks no1 for about 20 longtails terms around "different shoes". This page attracts around 60% of my websites traffic but we know this traffic will not convert as most are people and children looking for information only for educational purposes and are not looking to buy. Many are also looking for a type of product we dont sell. My issue is ranking for the primary category "Shoes" keyword. When i first made the changes we went from ranking nowhere to around 28th on the parent category page targeted at "Shoes". Whilst not fantastic this was good as gave us something to work off. However a few weeks later, the article page ranked 40th for this term and the main page dropped off the scale. Then another week some of the sub category pages ranked for it. And now none of my pages rank in the top 50 for it. I am fairly sure this is due to some cannibalisation - simply because of various pages ranking for it at different times.
I also think that additional content added by products on the sub category pages is giving them more content and making them rank better. The Page Itself
The Shoes page itself contains 400 good unique words, with the keyword mentioned 8 times including headings. There is an image at the top of the page with its title and alt text targeted towards the keyword. The 12 sub categories are linked to on the left navigation bar, and then again below the 400 words of content via a picture and text link. This added the keyword to the page another 18 or so times in the form of links to longtail subcaterogies. This could introduce a spam problem i guess but its in the form of nav bars or navigation tables and i understood this to be a necessary evil on eCommerce websites. There are no actual products linked from this page. - a problem? With all the basic SEO covered. All sub pages linking back to the parent category, the only solution I can think of is to add more content by Adding all shoes products to the shoe page as it currently only links out the the sub categories Merging the "Different Type of Shoe and Their Uses" article into the shoe page to make a super page and make the article pages less like to produce cannibalistic problems. However, by doing solution 2, I remove a page bringing in a lot of traffic. The traffic it brings in however is of very little use and inflates the bounce rate and lowers the conversion rate of my whole site by significant figures. It also distorts other useful reports to track my other progress. I hope i have explained well enough, thanks for sticking with me this far, i havn't posted links due to a reluctance by the company so hopefully my example will suffice. As always thanks for any input.0 -
My blog is indexing only the archive and category pages
Hi there MOZ community. I am new to the QandA and have a question. I have a blog Its been live for months - but I can not get the posts to rank in the serps. Oddly only the categories rank. The posts are crawled it seems - but seen as less important for a reason I don't understand. Can anyone here help with this? See here for what i mean. I have had several wp sites rank well in the serps - and the posts do much better. Than the categories or archives - super odd. Thanks to all for help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | walletapp0 -
Page 1 Reached, Further Page Improvements and What Next ?
Moz, I have a particularly tricky competitive keyword that i have finally climbed our website to the 10th position of page 1, i am particularly pleased about this as all of the website and content is German which i have little understanding of and i have little support on this, I am pleased with the content and layout of the page and i am monitoring all Google Analytics values very closely, as well as the SERP positions, So as far as further progression with this page and hopefully climbing further up page 1, where do you think i should focus my efforts ? Page Speed optimization?, Building links to this page ?, blogging on this topic (with links) , Mobile responsive design (More difficult), further improvements to pages and content linked from this page ? Further improvements to the website in general?,further effort on tracking visitors and user experience monitoring (Like setting up Crazyegg or something?) Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated, Thanks all, James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Antony_Towle0 -
Date of page first indexed or age of a page?
Hi does anyone know any ways, tools to find when a page was first indexed/cached by Google? I remember a while back, around 2009 i had a firefox plugin which could check this, and gave you a exact date. Maybe this has changed since. I don't remember the plugin. Or any recommendations on finding the age of a page (not domain) for a website? This is for competitor research not my own website. Cheers, Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MBASydney0 -
Page Rank
Hi guys I have an ecommerce in prestashop (unfortunatelly I can not change it at this moment). I made all main activities both off and on the page. And actually it is working pretty well since I am up on the SERP for all the target keywords. BUT, the page rank still be 0. The site is about 2 years old. My main competitor has the same domain authority than mine, but he has a page rank > 0 Moreover I have more quality links then it has, but it is older Any suggestions? Many thanks Ciao Diego
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrelax0 -
301 Redirect or Canonical Tag or Leave Them Alone? Different Pages - Similar Content
We currently have 3 different versions of our State Business-for-Sale listings pages - the versions are: **Version 1 -- Preferred Version: ** http://www.businessbroker.net/State/California-Businesses_For_Sale.aspx Title = California Business for Sale Ads - California Businesses for Sale & Business Brokers - Sell a Business on Business Broker Version 2: http://www.businessbroker.net/Businesses_For_Sale-State-California.aspx Title = California Business for Sale | 3124 California Businesses for Sale | BusinessBroker.net Version 3: http://www.businessbroker.net/listings/business_for_sale_california.ihtml Title = California Businesses for Sale at BusinessBroker.net - California Business for Sale While the page titles and meta data are a bit different, the bulk of the page content (which is the listings rendered) are identical. We were wondering if it would make good sense to either (A) 301 redirect Versions 2 and 3 to the preferred Version 1 page or (B) put Canonical Tags on Versions 2 and 3 labeling Version 1 as the preferred version. We have this issue for all 50 U.S. States -- I've mentioned California here but the same applies for Alabama through Wyoming - same issue. Given that there are 3 different flavors and all are showing up in the Search Results -- some on the same 1st page of results -- which probably is a good thing for now -- should we do a 301 redirect or a Canonical Tag on Versions 2 and 3? Seems like with Google cracking down on duplicate content, it might be wise to be proactive. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks. Matt M
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MWM37720