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.
Are blank Product Review pages bad for SEO?
-
Hi there,
I'm running a new e-commerce site (BoatOutfitters.com) and have a question about our product review pages. On our current campaign, we have a lot of duplicate page content errors. When we export the data, it's almost all blank product review pages (since we are new, we don't have that many product reviews yet). Our product reviews aren't run through javascript, so we originally did not add them to a robots.txt file - however, I'm now wondering if it's worse to have all of these duplicate blank pages, or is it not affecting our SEO at all? Should we just wait until these products have reviews which will benefit our SEO and then they won't be considered "duplicate pages" - right?
Sorry if this has been answered before - new here at SEO Moz and just looking for some help.
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the suggestion - we were leaning towards that so it helps!
-
If these pages are blank then they are thin content. If you have one or two or maybe even a dozen then no problem. However, if they are a significant part of your site then you could be hit by the Panda algo and that could cause your rankings to be reduced across your site.
I would try to figure out a way to keep these pages out of the Google index until they have substantive content or get them populated with content as soon as possible.
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
-
Seeking Advice on Improving On-Page SEO for my Website
I'm looking for some expert advice on improving the on-page SEO for my website, CCTV Camera Installation. Despite following best practices, I feel that my site isn't performing as well as it could be in search engine rankings. Here are a few specific areas where I'd appreciate some guidance: Content Optimization: I've ensured my content is keyword-rich and valuable to my audience. Are there any advanced techniques or tools that can help further optimize my content? Meta Tags and Descriptions: I've written unique meta titles and descriptions for each page, but I'm unsure if they're as effective as they could be. What are some tips for crafting compelling meta tags that improve click-through rates? Internal Linking: I've set up a basic internal linking structure. How can I enhance this to better distribute link equity and improve user navigation? Page Load Speed: While my site's load speed is decent, I'm aware that even minor improvements can have a significant impact on SEO. Are there any specific optimizations or tools you recommend for speeding up my website? Technical SEO: I've covered the basics like XML sitemaps and robots.txt files. Are there any advanced technical SEO practices that I should be aware of? Here is the link to my website for your reference: https://www.acssllc.ae/ Thank you in advance for your help! Best regards,
On-Page Optimization | | Htdbf
Israr Khan0 -
Filter By Category bad for seo?
Hello Everyone! I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it. BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
On-Page Optimization | | Safxmed
Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page (ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories. So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest. Please advise me on this. Thank You0 -
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | | mbmozmb0 -
Targeting Home page is better for local seo
Hey guys i need know whether targeting homepage for local SEO is good or creating separate page for locatin
On-Page Optimization | | moz12pro0 -
Getting the Titles and Headings Right on Product Pages. Userbility vs SEO
Hey Mozzers, I am optimising a chaotic section of the site including many similar products. Writing unique content etc. The titles and urls were all over the place so my first job was to tidy them up so I could make some sense of the situation, especially as sometimes they didn't even match! I should point out were on Magento, so product name = Both the Heading and Title of the page, the meta title can be set separately. When i refer to title I mean both <title>and <h1></strong><br /><br />Before they existed as such<br />URL: domain.com/200-x-0-5-g-rs-232-balance.html<br />TItle: PC-1234 200 x 0.5g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br /><br />This format was (Product Code, Capacities, Resolutions, Accuracy, Product Title)<br /><br />The issue was all 60 products in a page followed this format. Navigating through the page was a nightmare and was just a jumble of numbers and highly confusing even to me who learnt what they all mean, especially when you had 8 products from the same range you got presented with<br /><br />APC-1234 200 x 0.5g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1235 500 x 1g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1236 1000 x 2g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1238 5000 x 10g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1239 10000 x 15g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1210 20000 x 25g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance<br />APC-1211 50000 x 50g x 0.3 RS-232 Balance</p> <p>I changed them to something more user friendly.<br /><br />URL: domain.com/200g-precision-balance.html<br />Title: 200g Precision Balance<br /><br />This has seen the following benefits<br />- URL is now clear and means something to the user<br />- Product titles are easy to navigate and the page is more pleasing to the eye<br />- The jumble of numbers in the title are now all labelled and shown below each product listing in bullet point so the user can see the basic spec of a product without having to decipher any titles<br /><br />Upon reflection I has a couple of concerns I was hoping you could discuss, I am wondering if I have made the titles too simple.<br />1) I have no product code in the title<br />We have our own products manufactured and sell existing brands with their own product codes. Some of these can be lengthy. Adding them makes them hard to the eye and the page looked cramped.<br /><br />The codes are listed beneath each product title on category pages and on a list on the actual product page, but no where in the titles. <br /><br />2)None of our products have a brand listed in the title<br />None of the products on the site had brand names in anything but the images when i started and as such it snuck under my radar. But should i pre-fix all titles with a brand name?<br /><br />Should </p> <p>URL: domain.com/200g-precision-balance.html<br />Title: 200g Precision Balance</p> <p>become</p> <p>URL: domain.com/BRAND1-200g-precision-balance.html<br />Title: BRAND1 200g Precision Balance<br /><br />My instinct tells me to change things to include brands as its useful to the customer and should have an SEO benefit, but to leave out product codes as they are accessible to the customer where they are now and dont make things messy and unreadable.<br /><br />As always, thanks for the input!</p></title>
On-Page Optimization | | ATP0 -
Pagination for product page reviews
Hi, I am looking to add pagination on product pages (they have lots of reviews on the page). I am considering using rel="next/prev, to connect the series of review pages to the main product page. I unfortunately don't have a view-all page for these reviews or the option to get one - the reviews refresh on the same product page (by clicking whatever number page of reviews). This means each page has the exact same description content and everything else, but with different reviews. In this case is rel=next a good option? The format currently would be: On example.com/product link rel="next" href="http://example.com/product?review-p2" On example.com/product?review-p2 link rel="prev" href="http://example.com/product, link rel="next" href="http://example.com/product?review-p3 etc. Would this be a good format for product page reviews? I see rel=nextprev commonly used on ecommerce category/list pages but not really on the paginated reviews on product pages, so I thought I would see if anyone has advice on how best to solve this. I'm also wondering if it would be best to not combine this with a canonical tag on all the different review pages pointing to the product page, seeing as the reviews are actually different (despite the rest of the content being identical). I am hoping to pick up longer tail traffic from this, I figure by connecting the pages and not using canonicals that this way I could get more traffic from the phrases used in the reviews. By leaving out the canonicals, is it possible a user searching for phrases that might be deeper in the series, to land on, say, ?review-p4? Any thoughts if this would drive more traffic? Thanks!.
On-Page Optimization | | pikka0 -
Related products - random products or static
Hello, I was curious about where to get related products from. Currently I just grab some random products from the same category. Would there be any benefit to always linking to the same related products on a product page? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | nux0 -
Is giving away something for a Google Review bad?
I have a friend whose client is giving away something for free if you leave a Google Review for his site. I recall that being not well liked by Google and could potentially end up in a Penalty. The site is ranking really poorly in Google but well in Yahoo/Bing so I am wondering if that is what happened. What are you opinions?
On-Page Optimization | | netviper0