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.
Important keywords in product names
-
Hi!
among other we sell motorcycle clothing, which you can buy as a set (both jacket and pants) or single piece. Currently we name the products with the labeling in the beginning, e.g:
Motorcycle pants R2000, Motorcycle jacket R2000, Motorcycle kit R2000
Motorcycle pants R4000, Motorcycle jacket R4000, Motorcycle kit R4000
This is causing keyword stuffing and cannibalization in the category pages as all the product names include important keywords.
On the other hand it would be beneficial to keep the labeling in the name for search queries for the exact product.
What be your recommendations? I tend to take the labeling away.
-
Hi Tyler,
thank you for your quick reply. This is definitely great input, but yeah, my description of the problem wasn't quite clear. Sorry for that.
The issue right now is, that we have category pages with high keyword stuffing/ cannibalization. Following the example from above, our "motorcycle jackets" category page looks somewhat like this:
<a>Motorcycle jacket R2000</a>
<a>Motorcycle jacket R4000</a>
<a>Motorcycle jacket SuperCool</a>
<a>Motorcycle jacket Terminator</a>
etc.
And since the Motorcycle jacket category page shall be/ is the one ranking for keywords like "motorcycle jacket", we have a keyword cannibalization here.
On the other hand, if someone is searching for "motorcycle jacket R2000" if want to ensure the product page of the R2000 jacket is shown, not the product pages for the kit or the pants.
-
Without knowing the existing site architecture it is a little difficult to give a specific answer, but my two cents:
Are the 'like products' on the same page? For instance are...
Motorcycle pants R2000, Motorcycle jacket R2000, and Motorcycle kit R2000 on Page A
...and...
Motorcycle pants R4000, Motorcycle jacket R4000, and Motorcycle kit R4000 on Page B
...that is the image I am getting from your description.
Would it work with your site architecture to have a guide page for each category and then link to the product pages from there? The pants guide could talk about how amazing your motorcycle pants are, the relevant specs and about how wonderful your butt would look in a pair. The link could land on a product page that is a collection of all the pants you offer, it could be a link to the R2000 'set' page (where you sell all the products under one page), it could theoretically land on whatever you think is most user-friendly and would increase your ROI.
Ideally, and in my humble opinion, you would optimize your first page -however you choose to lay out the internal linking- for SEO and to show in relevant SERPs. Give some great original content; make that page have personality/establish your brand and brand persona (fun, serious, edgy, whatever); and something people would feel good about sharing with their buddies on facebook. Your awesome page on pants, for example, could be the canonical page and some appropriate usage of the 'rel=canonical' element could ensure that, if your user lands on the buy page (the one where all the size selections, etc... take place), that the linking metrics find their way to the page you want to rank, and have optimized for ranking, while the user happily shops and buys. This should avoid eating your own tail when it comes to talking about pants on subsequent pages -let's be honest, you can't sell pants without talking about pants.
I hope that this was clear and offered some sort of insight, but please take it only as a consideration which should be examined critically and with other options in mind. I am sure there are some other great ideas to be put forth and I would love to see some others post their thoughts!
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
-
How can I outrank a website whose brand is named specifically after a product / service (and mine is not!) ?
Hi everyone, I've been working hard on my on-page SEO lately so I can gain visibility for my website. The results have been great and I am now on top of the SERP for the services I propose. I think that my content is almost fully optimize and** I've respected all the best practices (both on-page and technical SEO)**. However, there is one problem I just can't deal with for I don't have the knowledge, hence this post. I'm pretty sure that this issue is quite common for SEO experts. Here the thing: I offer dental emergency services, which is my core business. I'm ranked 4th for that request in my area, which is good, but I'd like to rank 1st as** I have a better DA and content than the 3 websites outranking me**. Also, I'm the first result for any other related services such as "dental services" or "dentist". However, when it comes to the theme "dental emergency", I'm constantly outranked by the same 3 websites. I ran an audit on their website but **my content and technical SEO is way better **than theirs. I suppose that the only reason I'm behind them is because they used "dental emergency" in their **Brand name **and, therefore, in the Home page URL. Every time someone is looking up online for "dental emergency", these websites will be on top of the SERP as I think that Google is unable to know whether the users are specifically looking for their websites (aka Brand) or for "dental emergency" services. Here is an example of a competitor: https://www.urgencedentairedemontreal.com/ (urgence meaning emergency in French). His whole Brand name and URL have been built after the "dental emergency." service. On the contrary, **my Brand name does not mention "urgence". ** I see that as a trick that is confusing Google. The fact that my competitors named their Brand after a specific service I also offer is real pain for my SEO. I also think it's really unfair as I've put a lot of effort in designing a nice website with great UX and content. This is the kind of practice that should be penalized in my opinion. Please, does anyone know any way to resolve this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | AlexTL0 -
Include Site Name in Page Titles or not
i would like to ask if it is a good practice or not to Include Site Name in Page Titles. My page is not selling products it is about plagiarism checker tool. i will give one example in one page we are writing about the plagiarism types so the page title is plagiarism types and then is the site name. what is the better practice? Keep it or not? thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | anavasis3 -
How often should we refresh or rewrite product descriptions?
is it good practice to rewrite our product descriptions every few months? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | onwardsandupwards0 -
Should you have two separate pages for synonym keywords?
Suppose that you want to rank for two keyword phrases that mean the same thing but are slightly different in spelling. When should you put both keyword phrases on one page versus two pages? What are the pros and cons?
On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs0 -
CSS family names and whitespace
A CSS validation notes the following: Family names containing whitespace should be quoted. If quoting is omitted, any whitespace characters before and after the name are ignored and any sequence of whitespace characters inside the name is converted to a single space. Not sure what this means or how to fix. Help. thanks
On-Page Optimization | | casper4340 -
KeyWord Density?
What is an acceptable density for a keyword? It's wise to push it as close to spam without sacrificing user experience, correct? I read an article on SeoMoz (outdated I think) that mentioned 6%. If it's a keyword phrase, do you have to make sure you don't go over the density level of a particular word in the phrase. If it's a three word phrase, do you have to not use any one word more than X% or just monitor the exact keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | JML11791 -
Is it better to include the secondary keyword or site name in a title tag?
When I add a site name to my title tag with long-tailed primary and secondary keywords the title tag is longer than 70 characters. I need to include all three parts, so what should I do? At 70 characters the site name is usually partially cut off. I do not want to get penalized by Google, but I need to include the site name to have consistency. I am using the format Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Site name
On-Page Optimization | | lwilkins0 -
301 redirect and then keywords in URL
Hi, Matt Cutts says that 301 redirects, including the ones on internal pages, causes the loss of a little bit of link juice. But also, I know that keywords in the URL are very important. On our site, we've got unoptimized URLs (few keywords) in the internal pages. Is it worth doing a 301 redirect in order to optimize the URLs for each main page. 301 redirects are the only way we can do it on our premade cart For example (just an example) say our main (1 of the 4) keywords for the page is "brown shoes". I'm wondering if I should redirect something like shoes.com/shoecolors.html to shoes.com/brown-shoes.html In other words, with the loss of juice would we come out ahead? In what instances would we come out ahead?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0