Canonicalising a product with multiple variants
-
I am working with an ecommerce site and have encountered an issue I haven't come across before and would appreciate some advice on how to proceed.
There are multiple variation products with one master product and then up to 20 or 30 variant products, the variation could be colour, size or both. The site has been set up to canonicalise all the variations to the master variant product, which I understand to be best practice. But, this is where the issue occurs, the master variant product URL 302 redirects to one of the variant product URLs. Example below. My question is, is this harmful to our SEO efforts? Would be be best to canonicalise to a preferred colour or size variation?
EXAMPLE:
Master variant product: www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123
Seeing this product on the page and clicking will 302 redirect to www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456
On page www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456 the canonical tag is www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
-
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your response. At the moment we have around 2000 products and some of the canonical pages do rank, others don't so it does seem the search engine in confused.
The article on SiteBulb is really interesting and I agree with your reasoning to canonicalise to either the most vanilla or popular product variant.
Many thanks,
Simon
-
Hi Simon,
Quick question which I think I can guess the answer, does the current canonical page rank for anything at all?
Can't the developers make the canonical a static page (which currently redirects) default to the most popular and or a vanilla combination of product attributes?
That would of course be the best option, failing that you would have to just canonicalise to the most popular product variation and do so in a way that doesn't create a redirect chain.
I literally just referenced SiteBulb in another post, and I don't want to come across like a shill but there's a great explanation of it your issue here: https://sitebulb.com/hints/indexability/canonical-hints/canonical-points-to-a-redirecting-url/
Easier said than done for sure with some CMS and E-Commerce sites, but as the aforementioned link says...it's generally dealt with on a case by case basis.
Appreciate this is isn't a definitive answer but I hope it helps!
Nick
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
-
Combining products - edit existing product page or 301 redirect to new page?
We want to combine existing products - e.g. 'hand lotion' and 'body lotion' will become 'hand & body lotion'. As such, we'll need to combine the two product pages into one. What would be the best route to take in terms of SEO to do this? My initial reaction is to create a new product page and then 301 or 302 redirect the old products to the new product page depending on if the change is permanent or temporary. Would you agree? Or am I missing something?
On-Page Optimization | | SwankyApple1 -
Creating Tables with Multiple Links
Hello, Is Creating Tables with Multiple Links and using schema markup bad SEO? For example I have a real estate website which I have a hierarchy of home page -> County pages -> city pages-> blog posts.. However at the bottom of the county pages I list the city pages i serve under a table with links..
On-Page Optimization | | sqc0 -
With generic product like screws, for example what is best practice when writing descriptions? It's tough writing unique content for something when the only difference is lengths
With generic product like screws, for example what is best practice when writing descriptions? It's tough writing unique content for something when the only difference is lengths
On-Page Optimization | | Jacksons_Fencing1 -
Ecommerce product page duplicate content
Hi, I know this topic has been covered in the past but I haven't been able to find the answers to this specific thing. So let's say on a website, all the product pages contain partial duplicate content - i.e. this could be delivery options or returning policy etc. Would this be classed as duplicate content? Or is this something that you would not get concerned about if it's let's say 5-10% of the content on the page? Or if you think this is something you'd take into consideration, how would you fix it? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | MH-UK0 -
Does having landing page text beneath the products at the base of the page hinder SEO?
I have a site that is capable of hosting the landing page description either above the products under the H1 or below them at the bottom of the page before the footer. I have always chosen to keep the text "above the fold" as presumably this would be crawled sooner in relation to the rest of the page content than had it been at the bottom. However, this means that I can only really write just a few sentences for each landing page - otherwise the products would shift further down the page - and I don't think this is good from a UX POV. Question: If I move the bulk of my landing page descriptions to the text snippet located underneath the products, could this negatively affect my SEO? Text at the bottom of the page is obviously not significant for users, so is there a chance this could be seen as spam?
On-Page Optimization | | Silkstream0 -
Issues with Product Pages Getting Index In Google
I just started working here the other week and one of the big issue is that a lot of the product pages are not getting index in google. We have an xml.gz site map they submitted a long time ago. My guess is it might be something with not enough content on the pages? Here are a few example of pages that are not getting index in google. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/43/-/439/716/-/33097/Alpinestars-Dual-Motorcycle-Gloves http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/47/-/201/803/-/28948/Camelbak-Blowfish-2013 http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/46/-/203/836/-/6996/MSR-Head-Case http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/44/54/208/764/80/1220/Galfer-Brake-Pad-Sintered-Metal There are 100's that are not indexed just trying to figure out what we need to do! We are working on new content to them all but we have over 5000 products so it will take a long time. We also have the reviews on the pages and are looking at starting a Q&A on page to help get more unique content.
On-Page Optimization | | DoRM0 -
What should I do with these duplicate mass production?
Hi, I'm reviewing somebodies site and just realized that it's overflown with duplicates. Like these: <colgroup><col width="3496"></colgroup>
On-Page Optimization | | jjtech
| www.joannalark.com/store/products/24"-Sting.html |
| www.joannalark.com/store/products/24"-Sting.html?setCurrencyId=1 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/products/24"-Sting.html?setCurrencyId=6 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/products/24"-Sting.html?setCurrencyId=7 | It also produces something like this: | <colgroup><col width="3496"></colgroup>
| www.joannalark.com/store/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages.php?pageid=8 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages.php?pageid=8 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages.php?pageid=8 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages.php?pageid=8 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages.php?pageid=8 |
| www.joannalark.com/store/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages/pages.php?pageid=8 | |
|
|
|
|
| I don't know what to do with that and would appreciate any help Thanks, JJ <colgroup><col width="3496"></colgroup>
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |0 -
What are the benefits of targeting one keyword phrase per page vs. multiple keywords per page
What are the benefits of optimizing a page for one keyword phrase versus a group of similar keywords, like this one that Rand posted on another blog entry http://bit.ly/7LzTxY: Ted Baker Ted Baker London Ted Baker Clothing Ted Baker Mens Ted Baker Mens Clothing Ted Baker Mens Collection
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340