20-30% of our ecommerce categories contain no extra content, could this be a problem
-
Hello,
About 20-30% of our ecommerce categories have no content beyond the products that are in them. Could this be a problem with Panda?
Thanks!
-
It's not an exact science in regard to any one signal, however yes, the more you can reinforce the ability to strengthen topical focus, the less likely Panda would find category pages to be weak.
-
No worries Bob. Ignore my original suggestion then.
Alan has some good suggestions for you to follow
-Andy
-
Thanks Alan, this is perfect.
So if we had at least a couple of good paragraphs on every category page, and a few extra very appropriate internal links pointing to each of those category pages then we would be in good shape as far as Panda and category strength. Correct?
-
Hi Andy,
Sorry for the confusion. This is an ecommerce site. I edited the original question to be clear.
-
I'm assuming that this is a Wordpress site (more info would be useful) and a common issue is category pages causing problems due to them showing the same excerpts over and over. No indexing them gets around this.
if I have misread the type of issue this is, then of course, this doesn't apply. With this being posted in blogging and content, this was my assumption.
A URL to look at would I'm sure confirm more of the problem.
-Andy
-
Andy,
why would you noindex/follow category pages? Thats like saying "hey - we have X products for this category - so it's really a high value and important page we deserve ranking for. Except hey - we don't have the willingness to boost the trust signals on the category page itself, so don't bother."
That in turn negatively impacts the site's ability to gain maximum ranking signals for any products in those categories (at least in highly competitive fields).
So I'm curious why you'd take that path.
-
It could be Bob. I always advise that category pages are noindex / follow to avoid issues.
if you are using Wordpress and Yoast, this is just a setting.
-Andy
-
If a category page has almost no content (other than photos and product names), then that's a potential "thin content" issue, though the way your question is worded, I'm not confident my interpretation is actually what you meant by "no content beyond".
If product names don't reference the category name, and if there's a lack of any descriptive content on the category page, that's likely even more of a problem - thin content and lack of topical reinforcement of the category itself.
A general rule (barring other issues or considerations) is to have at least a couple paragraphs of unique, descriptive paragraph based text that reinforces the topical focus of each category page. There are numerous ways to split that content out across a category page, and in highly competitive categories, more content may be needed if not enough products exist in the category.
Other factors that can help mitigate this to a certain degree include (but aren't necessarily limited to):
- hierarchical URL structure (nested URLs so product detail pages are seen at the URL as being "beneath" their category
- Proper nested breadcrumbs to reinforce that hierarchical structure
- Strong internal linking a) within categories this would include pagination code (rel-next/rel-prev). b) outside a category this would include links and highly refined relevant content elsewhere on the page linking to the category page.
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
-
Do we get de-indexed for changing some content and tags frequently? What is the scope in 2017?
Hi all, We are making some changes in our website content at some paragraphs and tags with our main keywords. I'm just wondering if this is going to make us de indexed from Google? Because we recently dropped in rankings when we added some new content; so I am worried whether there are any chances it will turn more risky when we try to make anymore changes like changing the content. There are actually many reasons a website gets de indexed from Google but we don't employ any such black hat techniques. Our website got a reputation with thousands of direct traffic and organic search. However I am curious to know what are the chances of getting de indexed as per the new trends at Google? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Question regarding subdomains and duplicate content
Hey everyone, I have another question regarding duplicate content. We are planning on launching a new sector in our industry to satisfy a niche. Our main site works as a directory with listings with NAP. The new sector that we are launching will be taking all of the content on the main site and duplicating it on a subdomain for the new sector. We still want the subdomain to rank organically, but I'm having struggles between putting a rel=canonical back to main site, or doing a self-referencing canonical, but now I have duplicates. The other idea is to rewrite the content on each listing so that the menu items are still the same, but the listing description is different. Do you think this would be enough differentiating content that it won't be seen as a duplicate? Obviously make this to be part of the main site is the best option, but we can't do that unfortunately. Last question, what are the advantages or disadvantages of doing a subdomain?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny0 -
Our organic homepage traffic just recently spiked from about a typical under 20 per weekend to about 820 -- what could be causing this?
Website: http://www.myinjuryattorney.com Our homepage typically receives under 20 organic visitors per weekend, but I just checked traffic this morning, and it was at a whopping 821 for just Saturday and Sunday. It's already at 212 this morning. I'm heavily assuming this is fake traffic as there were about 818 drop offs after visiting the homepage, an 84.41% bounce rate, and an average session duration of 5 seconds. Our typical metrics -- last weekend for example, were: 13 visitors to the homepage, 38% bounce, and an average session duration of 1 minute 26 seconds. Does anyone know who or what could be causing this? Could it be a competitor using negative SEO of some sort? Thank you in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | marketingdepartment.ch1 -
Separate Servers for Humans vs. Bots with Same Content Considered Cloaking?
Hi, We are considering using separate servers for when a Bot vs. a Human lands on our site to prevent overloading our servers. Just wondering if this is considered cloaking if the content remains exactly the same to both the Bot & Human, but on different servers. And if this isn't considered cloaking, will this affect the way our site is crawled? Or hurt rankings? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Desiree-CP0 -
Is it still valuable to place content in subdirectories to represent hierarchy or is it better to have every URL off the root?
Is it still valuable to place content in subdirectories to represent hierarchy on the site or is it better to have every URL off the root? I have seen websites structured both ways. It seems having everything off the root would dilute the value associated with pages closest to the homepage. Also, from a user perspective, I see the value in a visual hierarchy in the URL.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | belcaro19860 -
Is this a Doorway problem?
Hi, You have a site with good content that you don't want it anymore, so you redirect it to another domain you have. Is it a blackhat tactic such as Doorway page? Is this bad for SEO? What is the best solution? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HildebrandoTrannin0 -
Are duplicate item titles harmful to my ecommerce site?
Hello everyone, I have an online shopping site selling, amongst other items, candles. We have lots of different categories within the LED candles category. One route a customer can take is homepage > LED candles > Tealights. Within the tealights category we have 7 different products which vary only in colour. It is necessary to create separate products for each colour since we have fantastic images for each colour. To target different keywords, at present we have different titles (hence different link texts, different URLs and different H1 tags) for each colour, for example "Battery operated LED candles, amber", "Flameless candles, red" and "LED tealights, blue". I was wondering if different titles to target different keywords is a good idea. Or, is it just confusing to the customer and should I just stick with a generic item title which just varies by colour (eg. "LED battery candles, colour")? If I do the latter, am I at risk of getting downranked by Google since I am duplicating the product titles/link texts/URLs/H1 tags/img ALTs? (the description and photos for each colour are unique). Sorry if this is a little complicated - please ask and I can clarify anything...because I really want to give the best customer experience but still preserve my Google ranking. I have attached screenshots of the homepage and categories to clarify, feel free to go on the site live too. Thank you so much, Pravin BqFCp.jpg KC2wB.jpg BEcfX.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | goforgreen0 -
How do you optimize a page with Syndicated Content?
Content is syndicated legally (licensed). My questions are: What is the best way to approach this situation? Is there any a change to compete with the original site/page for the same keywords? Is it okay to do so? Will there be any negative SEO impact on my site?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | StickyRiceSEO0