Feedback needed on possible solutions to resolve indexing on ecommerce site
-
I’ve included the scenario and two proposed fixes I’m considering. I’d appreciate any feedback on which fixes people feel are better and why, and/or any potential issues that could be caused by these fixes. Thank you!
Scenario of Problem I’m working on an ecommerce website (built on Magneto) that is having a problem getting product pages indexed by Google (and other search engines). Certain pages, like the ones I’ve included below, aren’t being indexed. I believe this is because of the way the site is configured in terms of internal linking. The site structure forces certain pages to be linked very deeply, therefore the only way for Googlebot to get to these pages is through a pagination page (such as www.acme.com/page?p=3). In addition, the link on the pagination page is really deep; generally there are more than 125 links on the page ahead of this link.
One of the Pages that Google isn’t indexing: http://www.getpaper.com/find-paper/engineering-paper/bond-20-lb/430-20-lb-laser-bond-22-x-650-1-roll.html
This page is linked from http://www.getpaper.com/find-paper/engineering-paper/bond-20-lb?p=5, and it is the 147<sup>th</sup> link in the source code.
Potential Fixes Fix One: Add navigation tags to the template so that search engines will spend less time crawling them and will get to the deeper pages, such as the one mentioned above. Note: the navigation tags are for HTML-5; however, the Magento site in which this is built does not use HTML 5.
Fix Two: Revised the Templates and CSS so that the main navigation and the sidebar navigation is on the bottom of the page rather than the top. This would put the links to the product pages in the source code ahead of the navigation links.
-
Thanks Matthew, while I am aware of duplicate content on this site, I wasn't aware it it specific to some of the pages that aren't being indexed. I will do more research on this!
-
Hey,
It looks like you might have a duplicate content problem contributing here. For instance, you linked to: http://www.getpaper.com/find-paper/engineering-paper/bond-20-lb/430-20-lb-laser-bond-22-x-650-1-roll.html
And there is this duplicated page, that doesn't have the category directory structure for the URL.
http://www.getpaper.com/430-20-lb-laser-bond-22-x-650-1-roll.htmlThat duplicated page is indexed by Google. It also looks like the duplicated page is what is listed in your XML sitemap, not the page you have linked to from the paginated pages.
In spot checking some of the other product pages, it looks like there is a similar issue going on. I'd recommend altering your XML sitemap to reference the URL you want indexed. Or, since it looks like Google has already indexed the pages on your XML sitemap (some of them, at least), you may want to use the URLs that have been indexed (the ones without the category structure) instead of the URLs with the category structure.
In terms of your possible fixes, I think fix one makes more sense. The more direct links you can add to deeper pages of your site, the better. On fix two, moving the sidebar and header to the bottom of the code and controlling the design with CSS can present some problems in various browsers...in my experience, it usually is more pain than gain.
I hope that helps. Thanks!
Matthew
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
-
Accidental No Index
Hi everyone, We control several client sites at my company. The developers accidentally had a no index robot implemented in the site code when we did the HTTPS upgrade without knowing it (yes it's true). Ten days later we noticed traffic was falling. After a couple days we found the no index tags and removed them and resumbitted the sitemaps. The sites started ranking for their own keywords again within a day or two. The organic traffic is still down considerably and other keywords they are not ranking for in the same spot as they were before or at all. If I look in Google Search console, it says we submitted for example 4,000 URLs and only 160 have been indexed. I feel like maybe Google is taking a long time to re-index to remainder of the sites?? Has anyone has this issue?? We're starting to get very concerned so any input would be appreciate. I read an article on here from 2011 about a company that did the same and they were ranking for their keywords within a week. It's been 8 days since our fix.
Technical SEO | | AliMac260 -
Can anyone tell me why some of the top referrers to my site are porn site?
We noticed today that 4 of the top referring sites are actually porn sites. Does anyone know what that is all about? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | thinkcreativegroup1 -
Poor Site Performance
Hello, A couple of months ago, this site was dropped from google due to a noindex, nofollow tag thewealthymind(dot)com It's back up, but performing poorly. Take for example the term "The 4 step belief change" in the home page title tag. This site is the #1 authority on that and yet it ranks 3rd below weaker pages. There's 180 404 errors in GWT, many from past versions of pages of the site but also including thewealthymind(dot)com/index.html and thewealthymind(dot)com/index.htm even though there is a rel=cononical tag on the home page. What's the process of getting this site back to health?
Technical SEO | | BobGW0 -
Expert Indexation challenge!
We have a major and strange indexation problem on our site for several languages for a while now. If I type in the search query "langsom computer" ("slow pc" in Danish) it used to display the page (www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter/Lang_DA/) in the top 3. Now it displays this site instead as result #11 which is an entirely different product: http://www.spamfighter.com/VIRUSfighter/Lang_DA/ The same happens for some other languages. The French search: "Optimisez votre PC trop lent avec une meilleure performance" (Optimize your slow PC for better performance) displays: http://www.spamfighter.com/VIRUSfighter/Lang_FR/ which has nothing in common with the search and the page intended: http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter/Lang_FR/ Anyone have ANY idea what this could be?
Technical SEO | | Crunchii0 -
Index page
To the SEO experts, this may well seem a silly question, so I apologies in advance as I try not to ask questions that I probably know the answer for already, but clarity is my goal I have numerous sites ,as standard practice, through the .htaccess I will always set up non www to www, and redirect the index page to www.mysite.com. All straight forward, have never questioned this practice, always been advised its the ebst practice to avoid duplicate content. Now, today, I was looking at a CMS service for a customer for their website, the website is already built and its a static website, so the CMS integration was going to mean a full rewrite of the website. Speaking to a friend on another forum, he told me about a service called simple CMS, had a look, looks perfect for the customer ... Went to set it up on the clients site and here is the problem. For the CMS software to work, it MUST access the index page, because my index page is redirected to www.mysite.com , it wont work as it cant find the index page (obviously) I questioned this with the software company, they inform me that it must access the index page, I have explained that it wont be able to and why (cause I have my index page redirected to avoid duplicate content) To my astonishment, the person there told me that duplicate content is a huge no no with Google (that's not the astonishing part) but its not relevant to the index and non index page of a website. This goes against everything I thought I knew ... The person also reassured me that they have worked within the SEO area for 10 years. As I am a subscriber to SEO MOZ and no one here has anything to gain but offering advice, is this true ? Will it not be an issue for duplicate content to show both a index page and non index page ?, will search engines not view this as duplicate content ? Or is this SEO expert talking bull, which I suspect, but cannot be sure. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, it would make my life a lot easier for the customer to use this CMS software, but I would do it at the risk of tarnishing the work they and I have done on their ranking status Many thanks in advance John
Technical SEO | | Johnny4B0 -
IP addresses indexed?
I've met with a potential client who has a site with 1,000's of very specific part #'s which don't show in the SERP's on Google. They definitely have the issue of dynamic URL's - but the URL for the part # searches is an IP address rather than their domain name - example: 188.888.888.888/partssearch.php?pnum='1233445' I've not seen the IP address used like this for an external website - is this acceptable for SEO purposes? Thanks, Mark
Technical SEO | | DenverKelly0 -
Site Hosting Question
We are UK based web designers who have recently been asked to build a website for an Australian Charity. Normally we would host the website in the UK with our current hosting company, but as this is an Australian website with an .au domain I was wondering if it would be better to host it in Australia. If it is better to host it in Australia, I would appreciate if someone could give me the name of a reasonably priced hosting company. Thanks Fraser
Technical SEO | | fraserhannah0 -
How much of an issue is it if a site is somehow connected to a site that was penalized by Google?
I am working with someone that is about to launch a new site, and one of the sites was affected by the Panda update. Does it matter if the two sites are connected? Share the same hosting provider and same Google Webmaster's account?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0