Schema markup concerning category pages on an ecommerce site
-
We are adding json+ld data to an ecommerce site and myself and one of the other people working on the site are having a minor disagreement on things. What it comes down to is how to mark up the category page. One of us says it needs to be marked up with as an Itempage, https://schema.org/ItemPage The other says it needs to be marked up as products, with multiple product instances in the schema, https://schema.org/Product
The main sticking point on the Itemlist is that Itemlist is a child of intangible, so there is a feeling that should be used for things like track listings or other arbitrary data.
-
Here's what I came up with: Validator Result.
Note that there's no guarantee this will pass muster with Google since they've said that the Product schema is for use on "a product page that describes a single product"
Here's an official response.
-
Are there any official decisions? I'm also considering adding schema markup to category pages. After running a competitor analysis I noticed this is something that I nor my competitor have in practice. So, I figured this will help my ranking for category pages. However, our product lists are frequently updated. So, would it be best if I went with https://schema.org/ItemPage, and if I went with https://schema.org/Product would I have to update the schema when there are changes in the product list.
-
Which did you end up going with?
-
The load time is not an issue really since it is just text data and only about 20 products. We have a nifty setup actually, we use Algolia to display the products on the category page, we are just making a double call to Algolia before the page render and taking their json array and modifying it into what is needed.
If you run this page through the Structured data testing tool, https://www.ebay.com/b/Fine-Jewelry/4196/bn_2408477 this is what one of us is proposing. See how the tool does not break each into a product node.
At the other time this is a page that the other is proposing, https://www.apple.com/shop/mac/mac-accessories It breaks the products into nodes. (albeit there are errors that can be fixed with the pricing)
I think this better illustrates the issue.
-
Logan when I grow up I want to be like you... jejeje is a joke but as, I see you are very active member of the community and always your answers are clear and concise.
Good for you
-
Hi there,
I haven't heard of using product markup on category pages until reading your question. It's a good idea and while researching I came across this other thread from a couple years ago: https://moz.com/community/q/google-rich-snippets-in-e-commerce-category-pages
My main concern is that most ecomm category pages have a lot of products showing by default, and if you've got a snippet of JSON+LD for each of those, you're going to hurt your page speeds. Just something to be mindful of and monitor if you do decide to go this route.
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
-
Competing Pages on Ecommerce Site - Very Frustrating
We have multiple issues with this situation. We rank #1 for "Lace Fabric", #3 for "Lace Trim", and #80 for "Lace". We also rank for "Lace Ribbon", and "Lace Appliques". The Lace Fabric and Lace Trim pages have plenty of backlinks, wherein may lie the problem. We have a similar issue for "Satin". "Silk Satin", "Polyester Satin", "Satin Trim", "Satin Ribbon", etc. This is a very annoying and common pattern. Our backlink profile is sterling, and our competitors with inferior backlink profiles and branded search are outranking us. We outrank them across the board for 2 word terms. Based on my evaluation of TF/CF, PA/DA, Content, etc., we should be on page 1 for "Lace". IMHO, these pages are competing for the head term. Any ideas on how to eliminate this issue to rank for head terms?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GWMSEO0 -
Investigating Google's treatment of different pages on our site - canonicals, addresses, and more.
Hey all - I hesitate to ask this question, but have spent weeks trying to figure it out to no avail. We are a real estate company and many of our building pages do not show up for a given address. I first thought maybe google did not like us, but we show up well for certain keywords 3rd for Houston office space and dallas office space, etc. We have decent DA and inbound links, but for some reason we do not show up for addresses. An example, 44 Wall St or 44 Wall St office space, we are no where to be found. Our title and description should allow us to easily picked up, but after scrolling through 15 pages (with a ton of non relevant results), we do not show up. This happens quite a bit. I have checked we are being crawled by looking at 44 Wall St TheSquareFoot and checking the cause. We have individual listing pages (with the same titles and descriptions) inside the buildings, but use canonical tags to let google know that these are related and want the building pages to be dominant. I have worked though quite a few tests and can not come up with a reason. If we were just page 7 and never moved it would be one thing, but since we do not show up at all, it almost seems like google is punishing us. My hope is there is one thing that we are doing wrong that is easily fixed. I realize in an ideal world we would have shorter URLs and other nits and nats, but this feels like something that would help us go from page 3 to page 1, not prevent us from ranking at all. Any thoughts or helpful comments would be greatly appreciated. http://www.thesquarefoot.com/buildings/ny/new-york/10005/lower-manhattan/44-wall-st/44-wall-street We do show up one page 1 for this building - http://www.thesquarefoot.com/buildings/ny/new-york/10036/midtown/1501-broadway, but is the exception. I have tried investigating any differences, but am quite baffled.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AtticusBerg10 -
Pros or Cons of adding Schema Markup via HTML or through Webmaster Data Highlighter
Hello, I am in the process of adding schema to a site that I am working on,, are there advantages or disadvantages to adding via html on site or through webmaster tools? Thank You
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TP_Marketing0 -
Ranking Page - Category vs. Blog Post - What is best for CTR?
Hi, I am not sure wether I shall rank with a category page, or create a new post. Let me explain... If I google for 'Basic SEO' I see an article from Rand with Authorship markup. That's cool so I can go straight to this result because I know there might be some good insight. BUT: 'Basic SEO' is also an category at MOZ an it is not ranking. On the other hand, if I google for 'advanced SEO' then the MOZ category for 'advanced SEO' is ranking. But there is no authorship image, so users are much less likely to click on that result. Now, I want to rank for a very important keyword for me (content keyword, not transactional). Therefor, I have a category called 'yoga exercises'. But shall I rather create an post about them only to increase CTR due to Google Authorship? I read in Google guidelines that Authorship on homepage an category pages are not appreciated. Hope you have some insights that can help me out.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soralsokal0 -
URL structure for categories, sub categories and products
Hi, I'm looking for some advice about URL hierarchy and the best way to structure URLs for SEO with regards to categories, sub categories and product pages. The way the site is set up displays the URLs as such, example: 1. /badge-accessories/ 2. /badge-accessories/plastic-wallets/ 3. /badge-accessories/plastic-wallets/clear-flexible-wallets/ I am questioning whether it would be best to keep it like this (which the site developers are suggesting) or change to something like: 1. /badge-accessories/ 2. /plastic-wallets/ 3. /clear-plastic-flexible-wallets/ Or something like: 1. /badge-accessories/ 2. /plastic-wallets/ 3. /plastic-wallets/clear-flexible-wallets/ Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kerry_Jones0 -
Does anyone have any experience using GoodRelations Snippet Generator for E-Commerce versus markup from Schema.org?
I am trying to implement Structured Data markup on a large e-commerce site that has ancient code and is not on any standard e-commerce platform. It is a Webstore we self-host that was developed for us and heavily customized. What's worse is that I don't have access to the source code. I have to somehow instruct our IT Director how and where to place everything. So I'm going to need to be meticulously specific. As I began wading through our code and determining where to insert code as instructed by Schema.org I ran across this on one of their pages: "This class contains derivatives of properties from the GoodRelations Vocabulary for E-Commerce, created by Martin Hepp. GoodRelations is a data model for sharing e-commerce data on the Web that can be expressed in a variety of syntaxes, including RDFa and HTML5 Microdata. More information about GoodRelations can be found at http://purl.org/goodrelations/." I went to check it out and it appears that this could be a great resource as it has a snippet generator and several "cookbooks" for adding micro data to our site. Here's a link to their snippet generator: http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/tools/grsnippetgen/ However, with a catalog of 5,000 SKUs, needless to say we aren't going to plug in our products into this generator one-by one. Has anyone here successfully used GoodRelations to help them implement micro data into a large E-commerce site that isn't a standard platform (not Magento, WP, Joomla or Volusion) ?? I would be very greatful to anyone who can share their experiences and or make suggestions on how we might best proceed. Thanks! Dana
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danatanseo0 -
Pagination for Ecommerce Site - How do I fix this?
Hi Everyone... I'm having issues on how I should fix the pagination on my ecommerce site http://www.moondoggieinc.com Right now I have rel="canonical" putting them all back to the main page like on: http://www.moondoggieinc.com/dog-harness.php but there are also some shop all categories like: http://www.moondoggieinc.com/products.php?cat=all+dog+harnesses But I wish I could get it so that the content only showed on the first page of them all and then just the products showed in the pagination after that. I have no clue how to make this happen successfully. I know this is a big problem with the structure to the site, creating some duplicate content and such, and I was wondering how I can even begin to go ahead and start tackling this. My background is as a designer so I'm just learning both seo, and anyhting past html / css, so I could really use any help you guys can offer. THANK YOU! KristyO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KristyO0 -
Changing Hosting Companies - Site Downtime - Google Indexing Concern
We are getting ready to switch to a new hosting company. When we make the switchover, our sites will be offline for a couple of hours and in some cases perhaps as long as 12 hours while DNS is configured -- should we be worried about Google trying to index pages and finding them unavailable? Any fear of Google de-indexing pages. Our guess was that Google would not de-index anything after just a short period of not being able to find pages -- it would have to be over an extended period of time before GOOGLE or BING would de-index pages -- CORRECT? Just want to gut check this before pulling the trigger on switch over to new hosting company. We appreciate input on this and/or any other thoughts regarding the switch over to new hosting company that we may not have thought of. Thanks, Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MWM37720