Ecommerce combating canabilsation
-
Hey Mozzers,
I think i know the answer to this one but i just wanted to check my thinking if you wouldnt mind.
I have an ecommerce website with lots of very similar products, for example
Blue widget
Waterproof blue widget
Blue widget with AlarmOne of the pages is ranking top 10 for "blue widget", however the other intermittently swap with it, knocking that page out and itself into the top 10. Then a few weeks later it swaps back again. This seems like a clear case of keyword canablisation to me. And i am wondering on the best solution.
301: Obviously not an answer as i need all 3 products visible
Canonical to one of the pages: Doesn't seem correct either, the products are similiar but not the same, all 3 could rank for different longtails etcI was suffering from something similiar on my closely related category pages and I combated that by interlinking them all with the relevant keywords to point to the relevant pages.
Should i do the same for these products such as...
From 'Blue Widget' product link to "Blue widget with alarm" and "Waterproof Blue Widget"
From Waterproof blue widget and blue widget with alarm link to "Blue Widget" (using the anchor text in the "").This should tell serps that all pages are about blue widget but the main one is the "blue widgets" page. Correct?
As a follow up. Is this one of the reason ecommerce sights have related products options?
-
No problem at all
-
Really good article that Andy, really enjoyed the read.
Thank you for your valuable input as always!
-
Before I answer that, I would like to point you to this article on eConsultancy about internal linking. This is the go-to article that I show everyone and explains exactly how to do it.
Should I link every instance of "Blue Widget" to the blue widget product page or just once from each relevant page?
John Mueller has also just confirmed here, that internal linking to your product pages is not over optimisation. Here is the snippet of interest...
"In general, I don’t see any problems with internal links from articles on an e-commerce site. So if you are an expert on a topic, and you have products that belong to that topic, then maybe you will write some articles about this topic as well and give more insight on why you chose those products to sell, or the pros and cons, the variations of those products, and that is useful content to have. And that is something that sometimes does make sense to link to your product pages or the rest of your site.
So that is not something I’d see as being overly problematic. If this is done in a reasonable way, that you are not linking every keyword to different pages on your site, but rather saying this product is important, this product is important here, this is something we offer, this is something someone else offers, this is a link to the manufacturer directly. Then that is useful information to have, that is not something I’d remove."
Make articles about your Blue Widgets more Why / How, rather than 'buy these', and title the pages accordingly. Steer clear of titles that could cause duplication issues again, but there is no harm in talking about them in great detail and linking.
I hope this helps.
-Andy
-
Hi Andy thanks for the response,
Your presumptions are correct in some cases
Sometimes i have a category
Category: Awesome Widgets
Product: Blue Awesome Widget
Product: Awesome widget with stuffHowever, Although there has been some cannibalism here, the category page (being linked from the homepage) and some internal linking always sorts it out and gains much more authority and ranking, removing the issue.
However, in this instance, where I am having the problem, all 3 are products with equal importance.
Blue Widget = the basic model, no thrills
Splash proof blue widget & Blue widget with alarm are more expensive completely different models with additional featuresThe keyword they're targeting doesn't have the traffic to be worth making its own category, 70% of those ranking above us are distributors selling our products using a duplicated copy of our descriptions etc (A practice i've stopped since arriving).
Because all 3 are so different (yet similiar enough to cause as issue) i dont feel canonicalising them although solving the issue feels like a cheap fix that has the unwanted side effect of stopping the product pages ranking for their own natural longtails.
I feel your second option is more appropriate. But am a little unsure to what extent to implement it.
My Current Plan
Each product currently has around 150 word bullet pointed description.- Write 200-250+ words description, talk about the other models as upgrades and include links to "blue widget with alarm" etc (250 words is about right without waffling or creating a wall of text for these products)
- Restructure the 150 words of bullet point into a features and benefits box
This gives each page 400+ words of unique content once you include description, tech spec and features.
Questions Should I link every instance of "Blue Widget" to the blue widget product page or just once from each relevant page?
Say i write 3 blog posts to link to my blue widgets page - should these be closely related enough to have "blue widget" in the title or maybe just talk about more general widget stuff and link it in. I dont want to just create another page that can join the cannibalistic party.
-
Hi,
E-commerce sites are littered with canonical issues for so many different reasons. The most common is like this, where there are cross-overs..
Your issues are probably being caused because you have a main Blue Widget page that carries everything (I assume).
Here is one way I would approach your issue... Probably not the best for your circumstance though.
-- Set canonical from Waterproof Blue Widgets to Blue Widgets
-- Set canonical from Alarm Blue Widgets to Blue WidgetsYou might want to remove the primary page from Google's eyes as this could be seen as a doorway page.
The second (probably best) way is by targeting the pages a little more closely - of course, this is a little awkward to advise on because I can't see the site. You would need to add a more thorough description to the secondary pages and make sure they are very focussed. Internal links as you have described will also help here with very focused anchor texts. These links I would add high up the page in an introduction text.
I would then create some blog posts related to each product and link through from these too. Try and get the link high up in the copy again. Don't just stop at one though - you want to create hub pages for each and this is the best way to achieve it.
-Andy
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
-
Ecommerce New & Refurbished with multiple versions of refurbished
I am working with a website that sells new and multiple grades of refurbished power tools New Refurbished Grade A (top quality refurbished) Refurbished Grade C (had a few more scuffs but in perfect working order) Refurbished Grade D (no warranty / as is conditions, typically for parts) How would you create the Products and URL structure? Since they are all technically different products they have their own sku in magento. Would you combine them into one URL with different product options? or would you give each product version its own url (New, Grade A, Grade C, Grade D) Thanks! -- Steven
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intown0 -
Keyword stuffing on category pages - eCommerce site
Hi there fellow Mozzers. I work for a wine company, and I have a theory that some of our category pages are not ranking as well as they could, due to keyword stuffing. The best example is our Champagne category page, which we are trying to rank for the keyword Champagne, currently rank 6ish. However, when I load the page into Moz, it tells me that I might be stuffing, which I am not, BUT my products might be giving both Moz and Google this impression as well. Our product names for any given Champagne is "Champagne - {name}" and the producer is "Champagne {producer name}. Now, on the category pages we have a list of Champagnes, actually 44 Which means that with the way we display them, with both name of the wine, the name of the producer AND the district. That means we have 132 mentions of the word "Champagne" + the content text that I have written. I am wondering, how good is Google at identifying that this is in fact not stuffing, but rather functionality that makes for this high density of the keyword? Is there anything I can do? I mean, we can change it so it's not listed with Champagne on all the products, but I believe it would make the usability suffer a bit, not a lot - but it's a question of balance and I would like to hear if anyone has encountered a similar problem, if it is in fact a problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nikolaj-Landrock2 -
ECommerce website with link to manufactures site for ordering - Should these links be follow or no follow?
Dear Mozzers, I have a couple of questions regarding link juice and whether I should have do follow or no follow links ? We have an affiliate eCommerce website and on our product pages we have a "Order online " button which will go our subdomain on the manufactures site in order for the user to complete the online ordering process So it's - www.ourcompany.co.uk - "Order Online Button" - www.manufactuer.ourcompany.co.uk Should this " Order online Button" be a Follow or No Follow link ? I ask this as currently from looking at Majestic seo , these "order online " buttons on my product pages seems to be Follow links so am I losing potential link juice by sending it externally ? Am I correct in assuming by changing it to be no follows, I would increase the link juice going elsewhere internally? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
International SEO, Ecommerce & Rich Snippets
I have an Australian Ecommerce site. I also sell to NZ and USA . As part of the user experience it will detect where you are and change the currency accordingly. so when google crawls - the currency will always be USD I guess ( because it is a US IP address ). My question - how can I embed ecommerce microdata that will show the correct currency / price to the correct country in SERPS ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Ecommerce Internal Linking Questions
I am a bit confused at internal linking for ecommerce site. Is it wise to link say all "boots" term in the review section to the boots page? Zappos is doing this. Wouldn't this incur penguin penalty? Since all internal anchor to that page is "boots" ? Scroll down to the bottom and checkout their reviews: http://www.zappos.com/tony-lama-6071l Is this the wise way to go about doing internal linking? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
SEO for eCommerce?
I'm working on a game plan for the on-page optimization for a growing e-commerce site (https://www.boutine.com) and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with similar projects. Specifically, how to get the most SEO value out of product and category pages. Thanks in advance! -Adam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | boutine0 -
Google Freshness Update & Ecommerce Site Strategies
Just curious what other ecommerce SEO's are doing to battle fresh content. We've been having our clients work on internal blogs, adding articles one click away from landing pages, and implement product reviews when possible but I don't know that it's enough. Our bigger customers have landing pages (usually category pages) with very competitive keywords. So my main issue is what to do with fresh content on category pages.. I've toyed with the idea of having the landing page content re written every now and then. We used to use a blog parser to bring snippits of comments from the blog into landing pages but I believe that to be a problem with duplicate content. News snippits from other sites don't seem beneficial either. Anyone have any other ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Removing Duplicate Content Issues in an Ecommerce Store
Hi All OK i have an ecommerce store and there is a load of duplicate content which is pretty much the norm with ecommerce store setups e.g. this is my problem http://www.mystoreexample.com/product1.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChriSEOcouk
http://www.mystoreexample.com/brandname/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/appliancetype/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/brandname/appliancetype/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/appliancetype/brandname/product1.html so all the above lead to the same product
I also want to keep the breadcrumb path to the product Here's my plan Add a canonical URL to the product page
e.g. http://www.mystoreexample.com/product1.html
This way i have a short product URL Noindex all duplicate pages but do follow the internal links so the pages are spidered What are the other options available and recommended? Does that make sense?
Is this what most people are doing to remove duplicate content pages? thanks 🙂0