How to optimize achor text links on ecommerce category page
-
A category page on an e-commerce sites, containing a list of the products within the category, usually shows the product image above the product text link. If both image and anchor text link to the product page, this would mean that the image is counted as the link in terms of ranking value.
What would be the best way to make the anchor text count in stead of the image? I guess some ways would be:
1. Not making the product image a link
2. Using some kind of link masking / redirecting technique for the image
3. Employing a technical trick to make the anchor text link come first in the code readable by search engines.What would be the easiest way to solve this issue? Or do you believe it's not worth bothering?
-
This pretty much mirrors what I was going to say....
"I can't find an example of how it would be coded (check link above!), but you could look at having a single ahref stemming from the product text, and expand the clickable area to include the image. This would get around your issue, and I've always thought that having multiple links to a single product like that is sub-optimal.
I'm not sure how much added SEO benefit this would have, but all the small things..."
-
Here is a link to an insteresting thread on this topic in the GWT forums: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/1yhb_xcdtZ0
Judging from what top level contributors have said there, linking images and text links pass the same amount of PR, with a very tiny amount of advantage to anchor text for a text link versus anchor text from the image alt text. Ultimately, do what's best for the user. In this case, for e-commerce, I think the image link taking precedence is just fine.
Dana
-
On our category pages we display products like displayed below. It is semantically correct, as all the elements inside the link are inline elements - it would not validate if we had a
in there as that is a block-element. However, in order to be able to style them correctly, we have added "display: block;" in the stylesheet making it easier to work with.
[
Name
Price](link_to_product)
Does anyone know what this setup has of impact on Google picking up anchor text etc.? Technically, we have an image, a name, and a price, where normally only a name is displayed. Is there some way, in which we can specify what should be counted for/valued as the anchor text (in this case )?
Thanks
-
Is this worth the effort or change in design?
Isn't it that google looks at the 1st link on a page?
So if you have 6 products and images this issue would only effect the 1st product seen?
Thanks
Handcrafter
-
You could design your product pages around having the anchored text link appear first, perhaps in an above description or blurb, and once again under the photo.
-
Hi all, i notited this discussion in another question (http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-properly-link-to-products-from-category-page)
I answered there with a technical solution, which i also would like to share here.
I made a fiddle about it, what do you think? Is it over optimization, or is it just a nice trick to get only one link, which is really well optimized?
-
Using a no-follow will loose link juice,
-
Firstly, I wondered if there are any news about this discussion...
Secondly, I wondered why it matters.
Is it because Google will consider only the first link from page A to B?
If that is the case (assuming you can't change the look and feel of the site) won't adding nofollow to the image link will solve the problem?Thanks
-
Perhaps add a no follow to the imageand move the link above the image . Currently you might have
you need to make it something like
<a <strong="">rel="nofollow" href="product.php"></a>
-
Just curious, would no-following the image link work?
-
Hi! We're wondering how your project is going, and if you made a decision and can share any results, or if you're sill looking for advice. Thanks!
-
This is unlkely to have too much of an impact on your rankings. I would recommend looking at the top 3 or 5 for your chosen keyword and look at what they're doing. I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over this, just make sure your images are optimised too and maybe go with #3 if you're really keen to make the change.
-
Thanks Ryan, that's really helpful. Regarding #3: could you still make the anchor text link appear below the image for users, but have it come first in the source code for search engines? Any suggestion for how that would look like in terms of code?
Could you also do this with a block of text that appears at the bottom of the page, but is placed on top in the code? As having static text on the category page is important for SEO, but you might want to have users seeing the products before the text.
-
A very common issue to encounter!
#1: Absolutely not! People click on images.
#2: Too much effort and possibly risky in Google's eyes.
#3: This isn't really a trick. Just update the template that generates the page and move the linked text ahead of the image. Any developer could handle this for you.
Hidden option #4: Have the link enclose both the image and the product name. It may invalidate your markup, but if #3 isn't an option, consider this.
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
-
Does a no-indexed parent page impact its child pages?
If I have a page* in WordPress that is set as private and is no-indexed with Yoast, will that negatively affect the visibility of other pages that are set as children of that first page? *The context is that I want to organize some of the pages on a business's WordPress site into silos/directories. For example, if the business was a home remodeling company, it'd be convenient to keep all the pages about bathrooms, kitchens, additions, basements, etc. bundled together under a "services" parent page (/services/kitchens/, /services/bathrooms/, etc.). The thing is that the child pages will all be directly accessible from the menus, so there doesn't need to be anything on the parent /services/ page itself. Another such parent page/directory/category might be used to keep different photo gallery pages together (/galleries/kitchen-photos/, /galleries/bathroom-photos/, etc.). So again, would it be safe for pages like /services/kitchens/ and /galleries/addition-photos/ if the /services/ and /galleries/ pages (but not /galleries/* or anything like that) are no-indexed? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BrianAlpert781 -
Duplicate page titles for blog snippets pages
I can't figure the answer to this issue, on my blog I have a number of pages which each show snippets and an image for each blog entry, these are called /recent-weddings/page/1 /2 /3 and so on. I'm getting duplicate page titles for these but can't find anywhere on Wordpress to set a unique title for them. So http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/recent-weddings/…/2/ has the same title as http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/recent-weddings/…/3/
Technical SEO | | simonatkinsphoto0 -
Nofollow/Noindex Category Listing Pages with Filters
Our e-commerce site currently has thousands of duplicate pages indexed because category listing pages with all the different filters selected are indexed. So, for example, you would see indexed: example.com/boots example.com/boots/black example.com/boots/black-size-small etc. There is a logic in place that when more than one filter is selected all the links on the page are nofollowed, but Googlebot is still getting to them, and the variations are being indexed. At this point I'd like to add 'noindex' or canonical tags to the filtered versions of the category pages, but many of these filtered pages are driving traffic. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fayfr0 -
Linking to AND canonicalizing to a page?
I am using cross domain rel=canonical to a page that is very similar to mine. I feel the page adds value to my site so I want users to go to it, but I ultimately want them to go to the page I'm canonicalizing to. So I am linking to that page as well. Anyone foresee any issues with doing this? And/or have other suggestions? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ThridHour0 -
Page that appears on SERPs is not the page that has been optimized for users
This may seem like a pretty newbie question, but I haven't been able to find any answers to it (I may not be looking correctly). My site used to rank decently for the KW "Gold name necklace" with this page in the search results:http://www.mynamenecklace.co.uk/Products.aspx?p=302This was the page that I was working on optimizing for user experience (load time, image quality, ease of use, etc.) since this page was were users were getting to via search. A couple months ago the Google SERP's started showing this page for the same query (also ranked a little lower, but not important for this specific question):http://www.mynamenecklace.co.uk/Products.aspx?p=314Which is a white gold version of the necklaces. This is not what most users have in mind (when searching for gold name necklace) so it's much less effective and engaging.How do I tell Google to go back to old page/ give preference to older page / tell them that we have a better version of the page / etc. without having to noindex any of the content? Both of these pages have value and are for different queries, so I can't canonical them to a single page. As far as external links go, more links are pointing to the Yellow gold version and not the white gold one.Any ideas on how to remedy this?Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Don340 -
No-follow links on advertising pages
Hi I run a job board that enables employers to post job vacancies and information about their organisations. These are 'paid for' pages (advertising) on our site. These link out to their own websites. My question is, would it be better for these links out to their sites to be no-follow? From my site's perspective, I cannot necessarily dictate the quality of their websites (although the majority are leading firms) as I would in article and feature content, where we do happily link out and refer to other quality sites with information that gives readers further information. I know that many large job boards do this where they run listings of feeds from other sites, but should we also do this at the page level where the link out is effectively paid for. What would be the pros and cons if I do or if I don't use no-follow? I hope this makes sense and look forward to some replies. Many thanks
Technical SEO | | CelestialChook0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
Hello. My Seomoz report this week tells me that I have about 500 pages with Too Many On-Page Links One of the examples is this one: https://www.theprinterdepo.com/hp-9000mfp-refurbished-printer (104 links) If you check, all our products have a RELATED products section and in some of them the related products can be UP to 40 Products. I wonder how can I solve this. I thought that putting nofollow on the links of the related products might fix all of these warnings? Putting NOFOLLOW does not affect SEO?
Technical SEO | | levalencia10