Should I change our main category pages to product listing pages?
-
With the thought of improving user experience, as well as rankings in Google, I'm considering changing our main category pages to product listing pages (with sub-categories remaining, still). These main category pages are very standard and don't link to any informational content, such as buyers guides, etc.
What's driven this is the latest Google core update. I've noticed our main competitor (who we were out-ranking before... but not now) now uses this approach.
I can see the benefit from a user perspective, i.e. less clicks to reach products.
What's the pros/cons from an SEO point of view, please? Could the potential duplication of content be an issue?
For context, we have about 2,000 products and website is on Magento 2.
-
if a visitor is already browsing through your product listing pages, it means that they’re interested in your online store. So this is where you lead them to product pages and persuade them to buy.
With minor improvements, you can start driving more visitors to your product pages and increase your conversions.
Here are the seven best strategies you can use to optimize your product listing pages, and why they’re so effective.
-
Hi There Hope you are doing well. I Started My site and Working on this Site's best laptop buyer's Guide. and with Google update, this is going down. Then I Just publish Quality Content and it ranked Again. With No backlinks.
Thanks
Raisaleem.
-
Sure can you tell me a bit more about what you want to do?
all the best,
Tom
-
I agree with the Silo Structure for blogs & e-commerce it works well when done the right way.
I like Patrick Stox & agree with a lot of what he said about blogs but for the most part the deeper the page the less chance to rank th is why he is saying interlinking is so important for this to work. Look at your site depth & you will see what I am talking about.
he is right about the home page n being the main start for everything but you must interlink
- https://searchengineland.com/everything-not-blog-post-start-using-silos-242508
- https://www.bruceclay.com/seo/silo/
a silo might require you almost remake your website.
- https://www.brightedge.com/blog/content-silo-seo
- https://backlinko.com/ecommerce-seo
- https://ahrefs.com/blog/ecommerce-seo/
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo/url-structure/
- https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls
Hope this helps,
Tom
-
Well in this case, you should use silo structure, Silo will not only helps users but also help search engine to better understand your website structure. and using silo your website will get a huge boost in rankings. This website TenRater is using Silo Structure. They're Ranking on some high volume Keywords without links.
-
Hi,
I didn't get your question, If you want to see an example of micro niche sites to decide you can check the boxing gloves related blog of me in which i cover some keywords but only in one category
-
The link that you had created goes to a gateway page? I can see you at the bottom you show that there is the ability to purchase the shoe however there’s no way for me to actually purchase it. I don’t know if you want that or not?
without seeing the entire site I can only give you advice on the side that you have shared with me. It would not affect your site to add categories based on the website where it says you can see my store by “click“
What you have already created could be used as categories if you were going to sell the product generally a category page in e-commerce is not a comparison but your content is very thorough & useful I would incorporate it into the main e-commerce site
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/technical-seo/url-structure/
https://yoast.com/video/ask-yoast-order-of-categories-and-subcategories-in-urls/
(this video might seem like it’s not very helpful but it does bring one very important thing into account. Don’t make redirects if you don’t have to. and if you have to make sure you do them page to page
so if you have a list of URLs and in this example: D is the final URL the one that you want every page to go to. (The other letters represent any other relevant pages that need to be redirected to The final URL D)
never link URLs like this A to B to C to D
all 301s Should be lined up like spreadsheet columns (but the spreadsheet should have a maximum of two columns) were the last URL/final URL is pointed to directly like below
- A to D
- then
- B to D
- then
- C to D
The final URL again is D
then line them up like a spreadsheet but never more than one redirect. Unless you can’t help it.
https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls
bigger photographs below (and the links are examples of awful URLs.)
- https://9c93f9579e3f41fd4e9c-0310e6d68b80e24ea2ff21e1b495e94b.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/6ED12A91-BF22-4D6E-B21F-ED423E7626A5.png
- https://9c93f9579e3f41fd4e9c-0310e6d68b80e24ea2ff21e1b495e94b.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/F50795AA-FF5F-42B1-B3D2-72F19432D9B9.gif
- Hope this helps,
Tom
-
I will be happy to help in 1 hour
-
I'm also looking for the same answer. I'm working on one niche store. And now want to go for macro website. You can see my store by click.
-
I would definitely take a handful and make them the main category pages that you suggested, in the beginning, we really don't have anything to lose if you keep the subcategories however I would like to map out the site it would make it a lot clearer
-
Hi
Yes, I see what you're saying now. I like those subcategories here. You are saying that you might fill this the text which would definitely give Google some more information on the products.
I don't know how you would make the products any closer to the homepage that way?
I would simply add an additional product overview page that is mostly text and links to the subcategory page.
These types of things are never easy because you have a very nice site I would to know a lot more about what's going on with it if I can try to help you with the algorithm update how much traffic have you lost?
I would keep the age that you currently have because it does showcase the current products very well and add an additional main category page with content.
I don't see the harm in doing it to a handful of categories as an experiment. Please keep in mind the closer to the homepage the cliques are the better. And your content should be informational and transactional meaning you're trying to sell on the product pages and product category pages and maybe use a blog for informational content which would allow people who are engaged like myself & planning a wedding the opportunity to learn everything I need to know about the big event. I would also partner with churches and other venues to make sure that the backlinks profile is relevant to your industry.
I will say this part is very confusing because it bears the same name
this is appropriately named https://bseo.dev/RjS2Hq
this is a duplicate and does not work properly.
I can give you an audit of your website if you'd like me to?
My information is right here
https://moz.com/users/view/383525
respectfully,
Tom
-
Hi Tom
This is my domain (I’ve shortened using bitly):
This is one of the main category pages: https://bit.ly/2RSWmZL
I’m planning to keep URL structure the same, and keep the sub-categories still. The only change would be that you see a list of products (which you can filter) rather than the current main category page.
I appreciate any thoughts that you might have! I can email you my email address if you like?
Thanks so much
-
Can you show me what you're being category pages look like now? Or describe them are they just products?
fewer clicks to reach products/ or any page From the homepage has a very strong correlation with ranking.
"with sub-categories remaining" you mean you're going to keep the category pages anyway?
the new algorithm update if it hurt your website could have done so for many reasons that have nothing to do with what you're discussing. If you wouldn't mind could you share the domain with us?
If you feel uncomfortable doing that will give you an email you can send it to.
Sincerely,
Tom
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
-
Should I change PDF content?
Hi everybody, My Website is ranking well for several keywords and long-tail keywords. However, all these visits are going directly to some .PDF guides that exist on our products and information on industry sectors the company is based around. I feel the PDF's are bad simply because they dont offer easy interaction with the rest of the website. I am considering making each PDF into a webpage but am not 100% sure of the pro's and cons of doing so. I will still need to the PDF's accessible for user to download but don't want my new webpages to get tagged as duplicate content. Is it possible to,
On-Page Optimization | | ATP
1 - change the PDF's so they send any link authority to the new webpage
2 - make google aware that I want the webpage not the PDF to be the "ranking" page What is the likely hood of destroying my rank for these keywords on the PDF by making these changes and then not being able to rank the webpage for the same keywords? It would be pointless if I just lost all the traffic lol.0 -
Duplicate Page Content
Hey Moz Community, Newbie here. On my second week of Moz and I love it but have a couple questions regarding crawl errors. I have two questions: 1. I have a few pages with duplicate content but it say 0 duplicate URL's. How do I know what is duplicated in this instance? 2. I'm not sure if anyone here is familiar with an IDX for a real estate website. But I have this setup on my site and it seems as though all the links it generates for different homes for sale show up as duplicate pages. For instance, http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78258 is listed as having duplicate page content compared with 7 duplicate URLS: http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78247
On-Page Optimization | | HandyRealtySA
http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78253
http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78245
http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78261
http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78258
http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78260
http://www.handyrealtysa.com/idx/mls...tonio_tx_78260 I've attached a screenshot that shows 2 of the pages that state duplicate page content but have 0 duplicate URLs. Also you can see somewhat about the idx duplicate pages. rel="canonical" is functioning on these pages, or so it seems when I view the source code from the page. Any help is greatly appreciated. skitch.png0 -
Local on-page SEO
If it feels like you are doing something wrong, then you 'probably' are... Local on-page SEO When optimising a page for local SEO, and trying tick all the usuals boxes, you find yourself adding words like 'golf clubs leeds' which sounds awful when part of a natural paragraph of text. Does Google recognise this poor use of grammar? We try to be as creative as possible, as not to offend the visitor, but it feels wrong... any advice? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | indicoll0 -
H1 Tags on Volusion Product Pages
So I'm working with a client who has no heading tags on his site and I'm wondering if there is an ideal method to implementing these on the product pages specifically, as the wording I ideally want to specify is is the product title, which i can't really code with an H1. Has anyone run into this issue? If so, what was your solution? Also, how vital are these heading tags on the product pages, anyways? If the Volusion SEO expert could chime in, that would be much appreciated. Thanks everyone!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
Please review page for on page SEO
I'm working on an adult dating site review blog and am hoping to build links to the category pages. It's a wordpress blog so the posts are categorised by topics. However can you tell me if there is enough content on the page for google to identify what the page is about? The problem is that the content of each category pages is pulled from the posts. What I think is needed is some static text on the page 2-300 words that use the keyword. Here's an example of a page targeting the keywords 'online dating'. http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com/category/online-dating/
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK
[editor's note -- thumbnails on site may not be appropriate for some workplaces] Will the page rank like this if there are a good amount of authorative links or does the page itself need work?0 -
Why is the seomoz showing it crawled 3 pages when i only have 2 pages?
I had seomoz crawl my site. I only have 2 pages. The site url is www.autoinsurancefremontca.com.
On-Page Optimization | | Greenpeak0 -
Duplicate page
Just getting started and had a question regarding one of the reports. It is telling me that I have duplicate pages but I'm not sure how to resolve that.
On-Page Optimization | | KeylimeSocial0 -
On-Page Report Card
How long will it take to see the results of changes made on my pages based on the On-Page Report Card recommendations? On-Page Report Card
On-Page Optimization | | sansonj0