Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Filter By Category bad for seo?
-
Hello Everyone!
I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it.
BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page(ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories.
So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest.
Please advise me on this.
Thank You
-
No, using a "Filter by Category" function on a website is not inherently bad for SEO. In fact, it can actually improve the user experience and help search engines better understand the organization of your content.
However, it is important to ensure that the implementation of the filter function is done correctly. If the URLs for the filtered pages are not properly handled, it can lead to duplicate content issues and negatively impact SEO. It is recommended to use canonical tags or URL parameters to avoid this.
Additionally, if the filter function generates too many pages with thin or low-quality content, it could potentially harm SEO. It's important to ensure that the filtered pages have enough unique and relevant content to provide value to users and search engines...
-
You have to think of your intention for the Google SERPs. Are those pages optimized for the same specific keywords or long term phrase. If yes, take a close look at the performance and ignore canonical Tag or robots settings in the first steps. When you see the ranking performance between the subfolder you will notice which strategy will fit for you. Optimizing a big website for several duplicates is not really helpful but not completely wrong.
-
@Safxmed you can use a canonical tag to point the filter page variant to the static category variant. This way, there is a clear signal to Google as to which is the preferred page for showing on SERP. This is the method used by ecommerce giants like Shopee. If a user searched on Google and clicked into their category page, the url would be the static variant. However, if they were to travel from the home page via the filter system to the same category, they are actually given the filtered page variant.
If you do follow this, i still recommend having the static category urls in links from home, menu, and footer where possible. This is for internal linking purposes.
-
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
-
URL Structure on Category Pages
Hi, Currently, we having the following URL Structure o our product pages: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/283/All_Products.html Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/4/Clothing.html Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale/product/LOAD-HE-WOM/Assorted-High-End-Women-Clothing-Lots.html?cid=4 Since we are going to use another frontend system, we are thinking about re-working on this URL Structure, using something like this: All Products Pages: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/ Category Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/ Product Page: www.viatrading.com/wholesale-products/category/product-title/ I understand this is better for SEO and user experience. However, we already have good traffic on the current URL Structure. Should we use same left-side filters on Category Pages as in All Products Page? Since we are using Faceted Navigation, when users filter the Category (e.g. Clothing) they will see same page as Clothing Category Page. Is that an issue for Duplicate Content? Since we are a wholesale company - I understand is using "/wholesale/products/" in URL for all product pages a good idea? If so, should we avoid word "wholesale" in product-title to avoid repeated word in URL? For us, SKU in URL helps the company employees and maybe some clients identify the link. However, what do you think of using the SEO-friendly product-title, and 301 redirect it to www.viatrading.com/BRTA-LN-DISHRACKS/, so 1st link is only used by company members and Canonicalized 2nd is the only one seen by general public? Thank you,
On-Page Optimization | | viatrading10 -
SEO value of old press releases (as content)?
Howdy Moz Community, I'm working with a client on migrating content to a new site/CMS and am wondering whether anyone has thoughts on the value of old press releases. I'm familiar with the devaluation of press release links from early 2013, but I'm wondering more about their value as content. Does importing old press releases (3-5 years old) create contextual depth of content that has some value for the site as a whole (even though the news contained within is useless)? Or, do these old press releases just create clutter and waste time (in migration). The site has a wealth of additional content (articles and videos), so the press releases wouldn't be covering up for thin content. I'm just wondering whether there's any best practices or a general rule of thumb. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MilesMedia0 -
Does Hiding the article´s date in a blog affect SEO?
We are running a blog and would like to hide date, as users find the article less interesting if they are dated more than 2 years ago. Will hiding the article´s date in a blog affecto SEO? Thanks in advance u2cJxsr
On-Page Optimization | | goperformancelabs0 -
Home page and category page target same keyword
Hi there, Several of our websites have a common problem - our main target keyword for the homepage is also the name of a product category we have within the website. There are seemingly two solutions to this problem, both of which not ideal: Do not target the keyword with the homepage. However, the homepage has the most authority and is our best shot at getting ranked for the main keyword. Reword and "de-optimise" the category page, so it doesn't target the keyword. This doesn't work well from UX point of view as the category needs to describe what it is and enable visitors to navigate to it. Anybody else gone through a similar conundrum? How did you end up going about it? Thanks Julian
On-Page Optimization | | tprg0 -
Does css float affect SEO?
It is generally believed that the closer the content is to the top of the page, the better it is for SEO. If that's incorrect, please let me know. I have a 2 column site where the left menu is navigation and right side is content. Obviously, the left menu appears in the code before the content does, but I can flip them around via css float. If I do that, the content will appear on the left visually, even though in the code it still comes after the left side navigation. Do either positions affect seo?
On-Page Optimization | | cmp1010 -
How do i block an entire category/directory with robots.txt?
Anyone has any idea how to block an entire product category, including all the products in that category using the robots.txt file? I'm using woocommerce in wordpress and i'd like to prevent bots from crawling every single one of products urls for now. The confusing part right now is that i have several different url structures linking to every single one of my products for example www.mystore.com/all-products, www.mystore.com/product-category, etc etc. I'm not really sure how i'd type it into the robots.txt file, or where to place the file. any help would be appreciated thanks
On-Page Optimization | | bricerhodes0 -
How bad is it going over 70 character for title tag length?
I know less than 70 is recommended. I am about to run a script to create some title tags and a few will be between 71-74. Is going just the few characters over ok until I can get in there and manually do them?
On-Page Optimization | | EcommerceSite0 -
Footer copyright year statement. good or bad
Hi, I see a lot of sites with a year copyright statment in the footer like Copyright 2011 - DomainName.com or Copyright 2002 - 2012 - Domainname.com since new year a lot of sites (founded before 2011) still have 2011 instead of 2012 in the footer. Do you think the date gives any signals to google? Should someone update the date or remove it completely? I would tend to remove it completely since the page date for google is submitted in the HTTP header. But maybe the info could be of any use for the user. Any best practices?
On-Page Optimization | | Autoschieber0