Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. What would cause the wrong category page to come up?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    What would cause the wrong category page to come up?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    6
    12
    1370
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • EcommerceSite
      EcommerceSite last edited by

      I am trying to figure out why the wrong thing is coming up in the serps. For example, we are trying to rank for used widgets. But when you type in used widgets in google the primary widget page doesn't come up, one of the secondary categories under used widgets comes up. What would cause this? What are things I should check?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Tom-Anthony
        Tom-Anthony last edited by

        Is it possible for you to give a clearer description of the categories? You say they are different products but that one is a second category of the other

        Does the page you want to rank show up for any other searches? In your analytics are you getting any traffic from Google to that page?

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • EcommerceSite
          EcommerceSite @Alick300 last edited by

          I did the site search that you suggest- site:www.site.com widgets and it was in the correct order.

          When I added the word used to the search it came up in the wrong order. They both have the word used, used the same amount of time. It makes no sense to me.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • EcommerceSite
            EcommerceSite @MonicaOConnor last edited by

            They actually are two separate types of items so I don't think I can canonical because I still want people to find the other category if that is what they are looking for. The names are so similar it is a problem.

            I have an x category, y category, and xy category. Even though the names are the same, they are very different products.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Alick300
              Alick300 last edited by

              Hi,

              The best way I find to see what the search engines thinks is the best page from your site for a term is to do a site search with the term you are checking.

              E.g.

              site:yousite.com + Term

              In your case : yousite.com + used widgets

              This shows you the pages in order that Googles ranks them. Also its a good way to identify duplicated title tags.

              Now there is an article published by Rand Fishkin on this issue to know what could be the possible reason to showing wrong category pages and how you can correct them  .Please check once below article

              http://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranking-in-the-results-6-common-causes-5-solutions

              I hope it helps

              Thanks

              EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • MonicaOConnor
                MonicaOConnor @EcommerceSite last edited by

                You could use a canonical tag to tell google which page is the desired page. Unless the other page also had targeted key terms on it. Then I would avoid the canonical tag and try to find a better way to optimize the other page for key terms not so closely related.

                EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • EcommerceSite
                  EcommerceSite @EGOL last edited by

                  It is unfortunate, but they have almost the exact same name. I don't know how to differentiate them.

                  MonicaOConnor 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • EGOL
                    EGOL @EcommerceSite last edited by

                    These titles are so close that google is probably flipping a coin.

                    EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • EcommerceSite
                      EcommerceSite @EGOL last edited by

                      For the term "used widget" ,the title for the page I want to rank is "used widget for sale". For the page I do not want it to rank for this term it is "used widget - type for sale".

                      EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • EcommerceSite
                        EcommerceSite @ofw12387 last edited by

                        It It has breadcrumbs and it shows the category in the level up mechanism for the category sort.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • EGOL
                          EGOL last edited by

                          What are things I should check?

                          Proofread the title tags.   Be sure that the one that you want to rank is the best optimized.

                          EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • ofw12387
                            ofw12387 last edited by

                            it can be that both pages are semantically similar and the robot is not sure which one from both should it rank

                            You could try to create an internal link in secondary category "url" to the url you want to rank, using the keyword as anchor. It may helps 😉

                            EcommerceSite 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • 1 / 1
                            • First post
                              Last post

                            Got a burning SEO question?

                            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                            Start my free trial


                            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.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • Wavelength_International

                              Should I apply Canonical Links from my Landing Pages to Core Website Pages?

                              I am working on an SEO project for the website: https://wave.com.au/ There are some core website pages, which we want to target for organic traffic, like this one: https://wave.com.au/doctors/medical-specialties/anaesthetist-jobs/ Then we have basically have another version that is set up as a landing page and used for CPC campaigns. https://wave.com.au/anaesthetists/ Essentially, my question is should I apply canonical links from the landing page versions to the core website pages (especially if I know they are only utilising them for CPC campaigns) so as to push link equity/juice across? Here is the GA data from January 1 - April 30, 2019 (Behavior > Site Content > All Pages😞

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wavelength_International
                              0
                            • Alexcox6

                              Category Page as Shopping Aggregator Page

                              Hi, I have been reviewing the info from Google on structured data for products and started to ponder. 
                              https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/products Here is the scenario.
                              You have a Category Page and it lists 8 products, each products shows an image, price and review rating. As the individual products pages are already marked up they display Rich Snippets in the serps. 
                              I wonder how do we get the rich snippets for the category page. Now Google suggest a markup for shopping aggregator pages that lists a single product, along with information about different sellers offering that product but nothing for categories. My ponder is this, Can we use the shopping aggregator markup for category pages to achieve the coveted rich results (from and to price, average reviews)? Keen to hear from anyone who has had any thoughts on the matter or had already tried this.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alexcox6
                              0
                            • jagdecat

                              I have a lot of spammy links coming to my 404 page (the URLs have been removed now). Should i re-direct to Home?

                              I have a lot of spammy links pointing at my website according to MOZ. Thankfully all of them were for some URLs that we've long since removed so they're hitting my 404. Should i change the 404 with a 301 and Re-Direct that Juice to my home page or some other page or will that hurt my ranking?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jagdecat
                              0
                            • MBASydney

                              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 | | MBASydney
                              0
                            • Sika22

                              PDF or HTML Page?

                              One of our sales team members has created a 25 page word document as a topical page.  The plan was to make this into an html page with a table of contents.  My thoughts were why not make it a pdf?  Is there any con to using a PDF vs an html page?  If the PDF was properly optimized would it perform just as well?  The goal is to have folks click back to our products and hopefully by after reading about how they work.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sika22
                              0
                            • BeytzNet

                              How to properly link to products from category pages?

                              Hi All, We have an e-commerce website and the category pages are built so that there is a product image and below it there is the title. Both the image and the title are in a href (each on its own). I encountered the following unfinished discussion here at MOZ:
                              http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-optimize-achor-text-links-on-ecommerce-category-page#post-93758 The discussion states that its improper. The question is - if it is wrong then why? (maybe because Google will give its weight to the image anchor instead of the text anchor since it is higher in the page). The other question is how to resolve the matter?
                              Should I add nofollow to the image href? Thanks

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
                              0
                            • Peter264

                              NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?

                              Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page.  For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages?  Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
                              0
                            • WebMarketingandDesign

                              Multiple URLs for the same page

                              I am working with a client and recently discovered that they have several URLs that go to the same page. http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx
                              http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx
                              http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FF
                              http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FS
                              http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?nav=FF
                              http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?nav=ffhttp://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=MShttp://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?nav=
                              http://www.maps.com/FunFacts.aspx?nav=FF#
                              http://www.maps.com/FunFacts
                              http://www.maps.com/funfacts.aspx?.nav=FF I am afraid this is happening all over the site. So, my question is: Is this hurting the SEO and how? If so what is the best way to go about fixing this problem? Thanks for your help!

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebMarketingandDesign
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            • Digital Marketers
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.