E-commerce site structure & link juice: Bouncing off an idea
-
Hi guys,
Question from a new-comer in SEO. Summary of the situation:
- potential customers are searching for a generic product category (buy mountainbike) more often than a brand in that category (Specialized MTB).
- And the latter is searched more often than a specific product ('some specific product from Specialized brand').
- Both the brand pages and product pages are not ranking good
Then would it be a good idea to have the category pages only link to the brand pages? They may show the products, but the links wouldn't pass link juice. I'm not even sure if that is technically possible, but I wanted to figure out the merit first.
I'm hoping this would support the brand pages to rank better as they take in more volume. Please do feel free to teach me!
-
I'm still a little confused. Perhaps because we are thinking of different things when we say "category page"?
I think of "category page" as a special page in the flow a customer goes thru when they start on your home page. Like this: Home page (has links to all the categories) >>> Category page (has links to all the products in that category) >>> Product page (has complete description and the Buy button)
So in my view, it is perfectly normal for the Category page to have a link going out to each Product page it serves. That might be 5 products or it might be 50 products.
If you feel there are too many products showing on the Category page, then you can use Sub-Categories to decrease the number of links. Like this: Home page >>> Category page (has links to all the sub-category pages) >>> Sub-Category page (split logically, like Men's bikes and Women's Bikes, or Under $200 and $200 to $400 and Over $400, etc) >>> Product page
You may also want to check with your e-commerce system provider. If they don't have an arrangement that you like, there are lots of other e-commerce systems out there...
-
Thanks a lot Dana. And thank you for going beyond the question.
We offer vouchers for writing a review, but there's only a handfull of reviewed products per category.
Where could I find inspiration to make our brand & product pages more compelling? I can't make the question more specific atm as there is still a lot in the "I don't know that I don't know" quadrant
-
Thanks for your answers.
It's definitely a normal situation. However, in the current situation the category page shows the product, each product box contains a link to the product page.
So a category page with 50 products will have 50 links plus links to other categories in the menu and so on.
-
To clarify, my comment was not a suggestion, just a description of what is technically possible given Peter's original post. Hence my warning about using nofollow extensively for internal links.
Regards,
Chris
-
I agree with Gregory that this is a very typical ecommerce scenario. It's also very common to see the search volume greater for the generic terms and then less and less as things become more specific (down to specific models of bikes, for example). I disagree with Chris' suggestion regarding the use of the "nofollow" attribute, here's a Matt Cutts video explaining why: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022462.html - Matt Cutts reiterates, point blank, "I would not 'nofollow' internal links." [Period]
I would take a long hard look at the brand and product pages and try to figure out how to make them more compelling. Do you have customer reviews? Are they being cultivated (i.e. collected, posted, requested...regularly)? Are your product pages getting social shares? If not, spend some time cultivating that. Without seeing one of the pages, my best guess is that there are 5-10 things that you could do right away to make those pages stickier and more compelling. Do that. Don't waste your time trying to sculpt PageRank.
Just my 2 cents! Hope it's a little helpful.
Dana
-
Hi Peter,
Like Gregory said, this is a fairly standard arrangement for large ecommerce sites. Regarding the passing of link juice, you can use NoFollow links to cut off the flow of link juice and concentrate the flow towards a few pages that you want to rank. However, be careful about using too much NoFollow linking internally because you want to make sure your site gets crawled properly.
Hope this helps,
Chris
-
Hi Peter. Maybe I'm reading your description wrong, but it sounds like a pretty standard ecommerce arrangement.
Is the following true?
Search Volume (ranked highest to lowest):
- Generic Products (mountainbike, commuter bike, racing bike, etc)
- Product Brands (Schwinn mountainbike, Trek mountainbike, Hurley mountainbike, etc)
- Brand Models (Scwhinn 851, Schwinn 3400, Schwinn 4xtc, etc)
Page linking plan in question: ( >>> means links going to a collection of pages)
Generic Product page >>> Product Brand pages
Product Brand page >>> Brand Model pages
Although this is a pretty typical ecommerce arrangement, I personally think it is not the best plan for sites only selling a few products. When there are only a few products I think it is better to go straight from the Home page to the specific product pages.
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
-
Site-wide links with optimized anchor words?
Hi Moz community, I work at a web design company. I found my competitors have a lot of site-wide backlinks from their clients with optimized anchor text "affordable web design by XXX". Some of the clients' website are not even relevant to web design or design industry. I am sure those are dofollow links. Although I heard a lot of sayings that site-wide backlinks look unnatural and spammy, why the top ranking guys are still using this way to acquire backlinks? Does Google really actually say no to this? Thanks for any help and explanation. Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Is site page structure hurting its chances to rank?
I have a client that sells geotextiles and related products. None of his keywords gets a lot of traffic google as it is a very B2B niche specific industry. For instance, and these numbers are off the top of my head The phrase geotextiles may get 80 searches a month and we have a domain.com/geotextiles.php page Then there are woven and nonwoven geotextiles which may get 30 searches a month We too have a domain.com/nonwoven-geotextiles.php and etc It then goes even further and has things like slit film series non woven /woven and we have subpages from there. To me, I feel as if we need to merge all of these pages to just a singular geotextile page with headers for woven and nonwoven and product info for the sub branches of those two. I feel as if we are basically competing for the same phrase again and again and again for very small amounts of traffic. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Ecommerce Site homepage , Is it okay to have Links as H2 Tags as that is relevant to the page ?
Hi All, I have a Rental site and I am bit confused with how best do my H Tags on my homepage I know the H1 is the most important, Then H2 Tags and so on.. and that these tags should really be titles for content. However, I have a few categories (links) on my homepage so I am wondering if I could put these as H2 Tags given that it is relevant to the page . H3 Tags will my News and Guides etc , H4 Tags will the whats on the footer. I am attached a made up screenshot of what I propose for my homepage if someone could please give it a quick look , it would be very much appreciated. I have looked at what some competitors do a lot of them don't seem to have h2's etc but I know it's an important factor for rankings etc. Many thanks Pete dJSFQwI
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Keeping E Commerce Product Content Fresh
Hi, Some months ago we created unique content for each of our product descriptions - basically, we removed manufacturers description and made our own unique content. But our content is now, I feel, stale but I'm trying to work out how we can produce fresh content for the product pages and how much is needed for Google to notice the changes? My question is: What does google class as freshness? Would a new photo count? I've always thought that it has to be mainly text content but we do not get that many reviews as our products are not mainstream and it's a small market so are we to create extra bits of text content in the descriptions, and how much?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
How are you taking you e-commerce site forward in 2014
Hi MOZland, With a new (our first e-commerce) client, we're going through a massive learning curve in handling a site of substantial size and complexity for the first time. While we've weeded out most of the on-page stuff that needed sorting, and we're in the process of dumping poor links implemented by previous SEO/online marketing efforts, do you have any suggestions about how to take a big e-commerce site forward in 2014, especially concerning technical pitfalls and link building efforts (and given that guest blogging has become something of a faux pas). Cheers, M
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Martin_S0 -
E-commerce Adding New Content - Blog vs New Page
I have an ecommerce site (www.brick-anew.com) focused on Fireplace products and we also have a separate blog (fireplacedecorating.com) focused on fireplace decorating. My ecommerce site needs new content, pages, internal links, etc... for more Google love, attention, and rankings. My question is this: Should I add a blog to the ecommerce site for creating new content or should I just add and create new pages? I have lots of ideas for relevant new content related to fireplaces. Are there any SEO benefits to a blog over new static pages? Thanks! SAM
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SammyT0 -
Google giving me only partial site links?
Hi Guys, My site is #1 ranked for the term "waiting till marriage," but Google only gives me partial site links. See "Forums - Articles - Questions - Videos" links in attached screenshot. How do I get the full, page-dominating, mini-description-having site links? Any suggestions? Note: I've got a ton of content and decent traffic, but I haven't put much time into developing back links yet. I'm a php developer, but I'm new to professional-level SEO. Any help would be hugely appreciated. Also, sorry about the inflammatory nature of the site. It's not a preachy site; it's just a support group. Hope it doesn't offend. partial-sitelinks.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MikeAM270 -
E commerce
Hi there. I'm currently optimizing ecommece websites for my company. The problem is, we have a duplication module whereby we duplicate sites accordingly to other countries. The on page analysis shows about 2,000 of duplicated content. How do i resolve this issue? I was planning to instruct the writers to write different content across different countries. Any suggestion on this? thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | k3zuya0