Magento Layered Navigation & Duplicate Content
-
Hello Dear SeoMoz,
I would like to ask your help with something that I am not sure off. Our ecommerce web site is built with Magento. I have found many problems so far and I know that there will be many more in the future. Currently, I am trying to find the best way to deal with the duplicate content that is produced from the layered navigation (size, gender etc). I have done a lot of research so far in order to understand which might be the best practice and I found the following practices:
- **Block layered navigation URLSs from the Google Webmaster Tools (**Apparently this works for Google Only).
- Block these URLs with the robots.txt file
- Make links no-follow
- **Make links JavaScript from Magento ***
- Avoid including these links in the xml site map.
- Avoid including these link in the A-Z Product Index.
- Canonical tag
- Meta Tags (noindex, nofollow)
Question
If I turn the layered navigation links into JavaScript links from the Magento Admin, the layered navigation links are still found by the crawlers but they look like that:
|
instead of:
http://www.mysite.com/girls-basics.html?gender_filte...
|
Can these new URLS (http://www.mysite.com/# ) solve the duplicate content problems with the layered navigation or do I need to implement other practices too to make sure that everything is done right.
Kind Regards
Stefanos Anastasiadis
-
I'm not sure if you guys found a solution to this but I've used Mageworx with my Magento sites and it seems to handle everything I need. I do have to do some Mod-rewrites but nothing too much for a developer to handle.
-
From what I can gather about Magento is the Layered Nav can create seemingly endless URL's. Even if you were to use one of the modules created to make them 'friendly', you would still technically have reems of duplicate pages...right? All nicely re-written but effectively with the same titles and meta...
You may be able to put a wildcard disallow in the robots file for the parameter 'dir=' , which is associated with all the filters. I dont know how well this will work or if Google may on occasision ignore this or find a way into the layered pages anyway? Does anyone know? What if the spider entered the site through a direct link to filtered page...would the robots.txt file go by the way side in this instance?
You could in theory also use WMT to dictate that Google does not index pages with the 'dir=' parameter. Again, I am not sure as to the success rate using this.
Its one of those areas that has many open and unaswered discussions but nothing definitive anywhere to address the issue. Yet Magento is very popular and as you look at people sites who use it you can see they have some how found a way to sort this out. Id love to be a fly on the wall in their office!
-
Stefanos:
Hi! Did you ever find an answer to this question? I have a Magento install as well and need some advanced technical SEO. Are you working with a Magento consultant at all?
Thanks!
Lynn
-
Thanks a lot for your reply. I already know this extension but it is not what I am looking for.
-
I don't know if you stumble upon this Extension,
but it may resolve your problems.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/EcommerceTeam/extension/4420/layered_navigation_seo
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
-
Google AMP or CDN?
Hello. I'm running a CMS that cannot currently support both CDN and Google AMP. I would have to choose one or the other. Does anyone have any insight on which may be the better choice until I can figure out how to have both? I installed CDN first to reduce the time it took for my pages/images to load. I'd like to have AMP because it can do the same, and perhaps be a little more Google friendly (their product). I would appreciate any thoughts. Thanks! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | recoil0 -
How to optimize WordPress Pages with Duplicate Page Content?
I found the non WWW ans WWW duplicate pages URL only, more than thousand pages.
On-Page Optimization | | eigital0 -
Title Tag duplication.
Hi Guys/Gals, We do a lot of work in a very competitive space (personal injury) and are having an internal debate on the best way to implement title tags for new sites. We understand that keywords, title tags, etc., don't possess the power they once did, but we have yet to see conclusive proof of this in our space. The vast majority of competitors still rank very well for keyword focused content, title tags, etc., while having average link profiles and little content. We write a lot of content for our clients and want to know if someone can offer their opinion on the question that follows this example: "Top 5 Injuries Caused by T-Bone Collisions | Indiana Accident Lawyer" Would it seem repetitive or manipulative to construct title tags as shown, always placing "Indiana Accident Attorney" or "Indianapolis Accident Lawyer," or similar of at the end of each title tag? Thanks, gang!
On-Page Optimization | | Wayne760 -
Duplicate Page Content Should we 301 - Best Practices?
What would be the best way to avoid a Duplicate Page Content for these type of pages. Our website generates user friendly urls, for each page..
On-Page Optimization | | 365ToursSafaris
So it is the same exact page, just both versions of the url work.. Example: http://www.safari365.com/about-africa/wildebeest-migration http://www.safari365.com/wildebeest-migration I don't think adding code to the page will work because its the same page for the incorrect and correct versions of the page. I don't think i can use the URL parameter setting because the version with /about-africa/ is the correct (correct as it it follows the site navigation) I was thinking of using the htaccess to redirect to the correct version.. Will that work ? and does it follow best Practices ? any other suggestions that would work better ?0 -
Checking for content duplication against content on your own site.
We are currently trying to rewrite our product descriptions and I'm afraid some of the salespeople that are writing the descriptions are plagiarizing one-another's writing. Is there a content duplication checker that will allow you to check a piece of writing against a specific site rather than all of the web?
On-Page Optimization | | MichealGooden0 -
Duplicate content
the report shows duplicate content for a category page that has more than one page. how can we avoid this since i cannot make a different meta content for the second page of the category page: http://www.geographics.com/2-Cool-Colors-Poster-Board-14x22/c183_66_327_387/index.html http://www.geographics.com/2-Cool-Colors-Poster-Board-14x22/c183_66_327_387/index.html?page=2 thanks, Madlena
On-Page Optimization | | Madlena0 -
Notonthehighstreet.co.uk - duplicate content? a reason to not sell via 3rd parties
A mixture of questions and discussion Question 1. can the following two pages be considered duplicate content http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/gardenbeet/product/deer-head-wall-art http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/1/1/219933-deer-head-wall-art-by-garden-beet.html both pages are indexed and both pages have different meta - aimed at different search combinations Discussion The search for 'deer head wall art gardenbeet' is generated by my PR company - we have done loads of print advertising for this item yet the sheer mass and volume of noths.com stops my store http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden-wall-art/58-deer-head.html from obtaining the number one position. All is fair in the business world I suppose BUT the original marketing machine for noths.com was claiming that they were assisting the small business owner. I paid them over £600 to join and now they compete with me head on. Stupid me I suppose. Let this be a key learning for those toying with the idea of investing in their own SEO or a 3rd party selling platform. Ho hum
On-Page Optimization | | GardenBeet0 -
Navigation for search
We are getting ready to launch a site that has great navigation for users, but it is not so great for search engines. As long as we are ethical about it, does anyone see a downside to detecting a bot user agent and displaying different nav to it? I suppose some could consider it cloaking, but I noticed amazon uses this strategy and they don't seem to be getting a big penalty lol. We are not going to do anything shady with it, just offer the bot a different way to access our content. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | altecdesign0