Use Nonindex or Canonical on product tags of a e-commerce site

[EmmettButler]

I run a e-commerce site and we have many product tags. These product tags come up as "Duplicate Page Content" when Moz does it's crawl. I was wondering if I should use Nonindex or Canonical? The tags all go to the same product when used so I figure I would just nonindex them but was wondering what's the best for SEO?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Emmett

So good to hear! For reference, here's what I recommended to Emmett...

I would just goto the category pages creating duplicate content issues and add some text. Here's an example from an Inflow article I often reference (http://www.goinflow.com/duplicate-content-ecommerce-seo/

"Category pages on eCommerce websites typically include a title and product grid. This means that there is no unique content on these pages. The common solution to combat this is to add unique descriptions at the top of category pages (not the bottom, where content is given less weight by search engines) that describes what types are featured within the category. There is no magic number of words or characters to use, however the more robust the content is, the better chance the page will be able to maximize traffic from organic search results (due to long-tail keyword traffic). A benchmark of 100-300 words is common. It’s important to understand screen resolutions of your visitors and ensure that the product grid is not pushed below the fold on their browsers. Doing so could limit user discoverability of the product grid upon visiting the category page.

Tip: Intro descriptions on category pages offer a great opportunity to build deep links to related sub-category pages, related article content that may exist on the site, and popular products that deserve attention and link equity."

If you have the opportunity to do so, try that out. You're developing unique content for that page and also giving the user a bit of perspective to really "sell" them on your products.

Again - glad to hear this worked! Let me know if you need anything else!

[EmmettButler]

So adding description did work. If you have multiple product tags that comes up as duplicated pages, just a description to the tags and that will fix everything.

Cheers!

Emmett

[Christy-Correll]

Thanks for the update, Emmett. And best of luck to you! Looking forward to some even better news soon!

Christy

[PatrickDelehanty]

Sounds great Emmett! Let me know if you need anything else and how everything goes!!

[EmmettButler]

So Patrick came to the conclusion to add a description to the each product tag page which is good for SEO and a good marketing technique. I add the descriptions and I'm just wait 48 hours to do a new crawl test. I'll update you as soon as it's a confirmed solution.

Cheers!

Emmett

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Emmett, have you been able to sort this out yet? We'd love an update, thanks!

Christy

[PatrickDelehanty]

AH! Just saw it! Sorry for my delay! I will respond here in a few! Thanks Emmett.

[EmmettButler]

Hey Patrick,

I sent you a message with a link to the website and the product page. Let me know what you think.

I appreciate your time!

[dynamyt100]

Guys, please could you let me know the outcome of this as well. I realise the necessity of the canonical tag regarding the categorization of pages but this tag issue is a concern to me so I would really appreciate the findings.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Emmett

Could you shoot me a private message and let me take a look? I think I am following what you're saying, but without a real life example, I don't know how much help I can be. I still stand by canonicalizing your main product pages, in my example...

www.example.com/products/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans

...for the other two pages...

www.example.com/collections/frontpage/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans
www.example.com/clothing/womens/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans

So, these two pages above would have...

...in their . But again, if you could pass me a link or URL, I can see what's going on and be of more assistance!

Hope this will help you a bit better! Thanks so much!

[EmmettButler]

Yeah it's like that. I'll elaborate my situation better with your example:

Product 1 URL: www.example.com/products/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans

Product Tag 1: www.example.com/product-tag/women-jeans

Product Tag 2: www.example.com/product-tag/blue-jeans

Product 2 URL**:** ww.example.com/products/blue-regular-fit-jeans

Product Tag 1: www.example.com/product-tag/women-jeans

Product Tag 2: www.example.com/product-tag/blue-jeans

When you go to one of the product tags webpage, both products come up on the webpage.

Since both these products show up in the same product tag webpage and I can only use one URL per canonical tag, how do I determine what canonical URL to put in the product tag code?  Would I just pick a product and associate a tag to it? For Example, Use Product 2 URL as the canonical tag for Product Tag 2 and Product 1 URL for Product Tag 1?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Emmett

For each product, do URLs look something like this when it comes to tags...
www.example.com/products/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans
www.example.com/collections/frontpage/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans
www.example.com/clothing/womens/blue-lowrise-skinny-jeans

If that's the case, you will want to put a canonical tag on these pages for the page you want to appear in search and rank. The reason you are doing so is because you have three different URLs for the same product. You want search engines to know this is not duplicate content.

Does this make sense? Or am I not following along correctly? Let me know, as I would love to get you where you need to be! Thanks!

[EmmettButler]

Thanks for the quick response!

I'm still a little confused. The way the site is setup is that we have many different products that share the same "products tags" (so each product tag is linked to multiple products). Each product has many products tags (about 10 per product). I'm not sure how to use a canonical tag on a tag that is associated to multiple products, or on a product that is associated to many tags.

Do you have any suggestions?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Emmett - do not noindex. Use a canonical tag on these tagged pages - you can learn more here.

You can also categorize parameters in Google Webmaster Tools.

Hope this helps a bit!