Website SEO Product Pages - Condense Product Pages
-
We are managing a website that has seen consistently dropping rankings over the last 2 years (http://www.independence-bunting.com/). Our long term strategy has been purely content-based and is of high quality, but isn’t seeing the desired results. It is an ecommerce site that has a lot of pages, most of which are category or product pages. Many of the product pages have duplicate or thin content, which we currently see as one of the primary reasons for the ranking drops.The website has many individual products which have the same fabric and size options, but have different designs. So it is difficult to write valuable content that differs between several products that have similar designs. Right now each of the different designs has its own product page. We have a dilemma, because our options are:A.Combine similar designs of the product into one product page where the customer must choose a design, a fabric, and a size before checking out. This way we can have valuable content and don’t have to duplicate that content on other pages or try to find more to say about something that there really isn’t anything else to say about. However, this process will remove between 50% and 70% of the pages on the website. We know number of indexed pages is important to search engines and if they suddenly see that half of our pages are gone, we may cause more negative effects despite the fact that we are in fact aiming to provide more value to the user, rather than less.B.Leave the product pages alone and try to write more valuable content for each product page, which will be difficult because there really isn’t that much more to say, or more valuable ways to say it. This is the “safe” option as it means that our negative potential impact is reduced but we won’t necessarily see much positive trending either.
C.Test solution A on a small percentage of the product categories to see any impact over the next several months before making sitewide updates to the product pages if we see positive impact, or revert to the old way if we see negative impact.Any sound advice would be of incredible value at this point, as the work we are doing isn’t having the desired effects and we are seeing consistent dropping rankings at this point.Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,
-
Another quick question about your comment on the link profile quality.
There are currently no messages or warnings about the link profile quality in WMT. Would you suggest still reviewing these backlinks and trying to get them off the link profile?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Andy for your response and recommendations.
-
Hi
Its a tricky dilemma you are having. I would personally say option A.
You mentioned over the last two years you have done lots of great onsite content which is great, but SEO is really boiled down to three area's.
- Content
- Link building
- Technical
You could argue content / link building is the same, but I tend to keep them separate. While over the last two years you have been working on the content part of your overall strategy, have you let something slip in the other two area's.
What new links have you recently gone and got in your niche (not directory links etc, but links from key influencers and websites in your niche. While this article talks about launching a blog, its one of the best articles on here for explaining what you need to do: http://moz.com/blog/my-recipe-for-success-how-to-launch-a-successful-blog.
You have some great blog idea's, why not share these with similar websites (obviously not your competitors), but other sites in your niche and get them to link back to you.
And the third option is technical - have you kept upto date with all the latest recommend changes from Google, is the schema markup correct on your product pages, to help rank the pages higher. Is your sitemap working, so that Google can crawl your site more efficiently, does your site work well on mobile etc.
Writing great content is just part of an overall strategy and on its own won't help you to rank any better. While Google tries to use other metrics to determining ranking, links are still an important factor in where you rank.
All your link in my opinion look spammy and from directory sites and if I am thinking this, Google is potentially seeing the same thing. Have you got any messages in WMT about penalties.
Have you thought about contacting some bloggers and asking if they would like to review your products (Note never asks for a link, but let the website decided if they want to link to you - looks more natural if every mention isnt a link). This way if these bloggers review your products as well as some potential extra links, you are also potentially advertising to new customers.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Why Product pages are throwing Missing field "image" and Missing field "price" in Wordpress Woocommerce
I have a wordpress wocommerce website where I have uploaded 100s of products but it's giving me error in GSC under merchant listing tab. When I tested it show missing field image and missing field price. I have done everything according to https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/product#merchant-listing-experiences and applied fixed i.e. images are 800x800 and price range is also there. What else can be done here?!merchant listing.jpg
Technical SEO | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Will my site get devalued if I add the same company schema to all the pages of my website?
If I add the exact same schema markup to every page on my website - is it considered duplicate content? Our CMS is telling me that if I want schema mark-up on our site that it has to be the same on every page on the website. This limitation is frustrating but I am trying to figure out the best way to work within their boundaries. Your help is appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Annette_Wetzel0 -
3,511 Pages Indexed and 3,331 Pages Blocked by Robots
Morning, So I checked our site's index status on WMT, and I'm being told that Google is indexing 3,511 pages and the robots are blocking 3,331. This seems slightly odd as we're only disallowing 24 pages on the robots.txt file. In light of this, I have the following queries: Do these figures mean that Google is indexing 3,511 pages and blocking 3,331 other pages? Or does it mean that it's blocking 3,331 pages of the 3,511 indexed? As there are only 24 URLs being disallowed on robots.text, why are 3,331 pages being blocked? Will these be variations of the URLs we've submitted? Currently, we don't have a sitemap. I know, I know, it's pretty unforgivable but the old one didn't really work and the developers are working on the new one. Once submitted, will this help? I think I know the answer to this, but is there any way to ascertain which pages are being blocked? Thanks in advance! Lewis
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
"One Page With Two Links To Same Page; We Counted The First Link" Is this true?
I read this to day http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718 I thought to myself, yep, thats what I been reading in Moz for years ( pitty Matt could not confirm that still the case for 2014) But reading though the comments Michael Martinez of http://www.seo-theory.com/ pointed out that Mat says "...the last time I checked, was 2009, and back then -- uh, we might, for example, only have selected one of the links from a given page."
Technical SEO | | PaddyDisplays
Which would imply that is does not not mean it always the first link. Michael goes on to say "Back in 2008 when Rand WRONGLY claimed that Google was only counting the first link (I shared results of a test where it passed anchor text from TWO links on the same page)" then goes on to say " In practice the search engine sometimes skipped over links and took anchor text from a second or third link down the page." For me this is significant. I know people that have had "SEO experts" recommend that they should have a blog attached to there e-commence site and post blog posts (with no real interest for readers) with anchor text links to you landing pages. I thought that posting blog post just for anchor text link was a waste of time if you are already linking to the landing page with in a main navigation as google would see that link first. But if Michael is correct then these type of blog posts anchor text link blog posts would have value But who is' right Rand or Michael?0 -
Ecommerce website: Product page setup & SKU's
I manage an E-commerce website and we are looking to make some changes to our product pages to try and optimise them for search purposes and to try and improve the customer buying experience. This is where my head starts to hurt! Now, let's say I am selling a T shirt that comes in 4 sizes and 6 different colours. At the moment my website would have 24 products, each with pretty much the same content (maybe differing references to the colour & size). My idea is to change this and have 1 main product page for the T-shirt, but to have 24 product SKU's/variations that exist to give the exact product details. Some different ways I have been considering to do this: a) have drop-down fields on the product page that ask the customer to select their Tshirt size and colour. The image & price then changes on the page. b) All product 24 product SKUs sre listed under the main product with the 'Add to Cart' open next to each one. Each one would be clickable so a page it its own right. Would I need to set up a canonical links for each SKU that point to the top level product page? I'm obviously looking to minimise duplicate content but Im not exactly sure on how to set this up - its a big decision so I need to be 100% clear before signing off on anything. . Any other tips on how to do this or examples of good e-commerce websites that use product SKus well? Kind regards Tom
Technical SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Best practice for rich snippet product data - which page shows up?
We have a website with thousands of pages that rank locally for a specific service we offer. What I'd like to do is add rich snippets to these pages. I'd like to setup the services we offer as 'products' in the rich snippets, so that our 2 services show up below the url as rich snippets. I guess I'm not sure if the markup is supposed to be on the product page itself, or if I should use the offerurl tag, to create a separate page on the site whose only purpose is to have a long list of the services we offer pointing to the local pages as the offer url's. What do I do with this page? what are best practices for this offer aggregator? Are there any resources I can look at? Am I even doing this right? I'm new to having markup pages, and I'm hoping that the markup code doesn't actually need to be on the product offer page itself, but that the product offer page is the one that shows up on the results - that is my last question actually - which page will show up? the offerurl link, or the actual markup page.
Technical SEO | | ilyaelbert0 -
How do I resolve Twin domains? redirect website.com to www.website.com?
I am new to this website. Tried to run a campain and got a warning that website.com resolves to www.website.com which hinders SERP by competing for Keyword indexing!. (website is my domain name) Would appreciate help with this. Thanks. S.H. PS: here is the exact wording of error : We have detected that the domain www.yfvaccine.com and the domain yfvaccine.com both respond to web requests and do not redirect. Having two "twin" domains that both resolve forces them to battle for SERP positions, making your SEO efforts less effective. We suggest redirecting one, then entering the other here.
Technical SEO | | sherohass0 -
Handling 301s: Multiple pages to a single page (consolidation)
Been scouring the interwebs and haven't found much information on redirecting two serparate pages to a single new page. Here is what it boils down to: Let's say a website has two pages, both with good page authority of products that are becoming fazed out. The products, Widget A and Widget B, are still popular search terms, but they are being combined into ONE product, Widget C. While Widget A and Widget B STILL have plenty to do with Widget C, Widget C is now the new page, the main focus page, and the page you want everyone to see and Google to recognize. Now, do I 301 Widget A and Widget B pages to Widget C, ALTHOUGH Widgets A and B previously had nothing to do with one another? (Remember, we want to try and keep some of that authority the two page have had.) OR do we keep Widget A and Widget B pages "alive", take them off the main navigation, and then put a "disclaimer" on the pages announcing they are now part of Widget C and link to Widget C? OR Should Widgets A and B page be canonicalized to Widget C? Again, keep in mind, widgets A and B previously were not similar, but NOW they are and result in Widget C. (If you are confused, we can provide a REAL work example of what we are talkinga about, but decided to not be specific to our industry for this.) Appreciate any and all thoughts on this.
Technical SEO | | JU19850