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.
Woocommerce SEO and Product attributes
-
Hi friends! I have a question that is advanced Woocommerce and seo-related.
I'm seeing http://www.mywebsitex.com/pa_keyword/indexed in Google, but it cannot be properly optimized, and I would prefer to have a WordPress Page indexed for that keyword instead, which also lists those products and can be fully seo optimized. Woocommerce SEO plugin by Yoast lacks documentation and I have no clue if that would even fix this. I do have the Taxonomy (pa_keyword) set to not include these in the sitemap, but there doesn't seem to be a way to noindex/nofollow product attributes.
1. How can I best accomplish this?
2. Why are product attributes indexed by default? -
I actually looked into this a little further before developing conditionals, and I noticed it is possible in Yoast. You have to go to Products - Attributes, then the Gear icon, then select noindex.
-
Thank you, I think that is a good solution, and I've done similar conditional noindex tags on real estate websites, so I'll try it out for Woocommerce. I was wrong to think this should be included in Woocommerce, and instead it should likely be a component of the SEO plugin (in my case that is Yoast SEO)
-
Hi Justin,
Yes, you're correct in your response on Nov 26: XML sitemap exclusion won't guarantee that the pages aren't indexed, as they can still be discovered by Googlebot. Instead, you'll need to edit your Wordpress theme. I'll give some instructions for the 'Storefront' theme here, which should work in the majority of cases, but you may need to amend them if your theme is heavily customized.
When the page loads, it'll call the get_header(); Wordpress function, and pass the argument 'shop' to it, like so: get_header('shop');
That will prompt Wordpress to go looking for a file in the theme root called 'header-shop.php'. If that file doesn't exist, it'll load the default header.php file instead. If you do have a header-shop.php file, edit it to add the meta noindex tag on category pages. If you don't have a header-shop.php file, make a copy of header.php and rename the copy header-shop.php, saving it to the root folder of the theme.
Now in the header-shop.php file that you're amending or have just created, add something like the following before the closing tag:
if ( is_product_category() or is_product_tag() ) {
echo "";
}
You should take care to ensure that the conditional statement there is working: you don't want to inadvertently noindex all of your shop pages! So test carefully on a local version of the site, and make sure that you aren't seeing noindex tags in the source code of the non-taxonomy pages.
I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your second question. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because the developers would receive more criticism for enforcing noindex tags on certain categories of page than for not providing a noindex feature. If they put noindex on taxonomy pages by default, for example, and didn't provide an easy plugin for removing it, they'd probably get complaints about that. Or it just isn't an important enough issue in terms of the overall WooCommerce development roadmap.
-
That is only for the XML Sitemap exclusion though. Just because they are not included in the sitemap, doesn't mean they won't be indexed, correct? Shouldn't their be a way to noindex/nofollow these?
-
Hi Justin,
I also work with Woocommerce/ Yoast and in the settings of Yoast you go to XML Sitemaps and than the tab: taxonomies. There you can exclude the (product attributes. I had the same with all images who where indexed seperatly.
Hope this helps you!
Regards
Tymen
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
-
Best SEO-friendly CMS platform?
I have been tasked with rebuilding a small e-commerce website using a CMS, but I'm not sure which one has the most SEO compatibility. One SEO company recommended Squarespace. Another warned me against Squarespace because of its limited SEO features and instead recommended Wordpress with the WooCommerce toolkit. I've also heard Drupal and Joomla mentioned. Are certain CMS platforms more SEO-friendly? If so, what are the best ones that can also handle e-commerce? Thanks!
Web Design | | businessimagesolutions1 -
How to know if a wordpress theme is coded correctly for Seo
Hi, So I am curious if there is a tool to see if a site is coed properly for Google? I am running Avada, a standalone theme, yet I am also using a cache plugin. But when I search my code, its all like on one huge line. So I am curious if there is a way to verify or check if a theme is coded correctly? Thank you
Web Design | | Berner1 -
What seo benefit does setting up a photo gallery where each photo is a separate web page?
what seo benefit does setting up a photo gallery where each photo is a separate web page? My old SEO guy set up my photo gallery like that claiming that because each photo was a separate page, it added a big seo benefit and i never understood what he was talking about. Maybe alt text on the photo with key phrases in it pointing to my other pages to give my site a theme for google? I'm not really sure. He has since moved away and i am considering redoing the photo gallery to multiple images on one page to be more user friendly to my users. This photo gallery is 3 years old and the photos might have some page rank to them helping my site so i don't want to remove this gallery if there really is a benefit to it and it will hurt my site. I once removed four static page rank 3 pages from my site that weren't used for my site anymore and my rankings dropped 5 positions. Thoughts anyone? Thanks! Ron
Web Design | | Ron100 -
From Google Sites to Wordpress - Anyone Ventured this SEO terrain?
We have a few sites in Google Sites - and they are ugly! We have a majority (40+) of websites in Wordpress. But we have a few websites just stuck on Google Sites, and since Google won't let you fully edit the HTML, add scripts, or implement any technology since 2000, we want to move. The sad problem - the Google sites are ranking well. We rank well in Manhattan, Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. The problem is - the sites do not give much room for growth - and the bounce rate is high because they are so ugly. Has Anyone moved from Google sites to Wordpress? Should we just stay with Google and bite the ugly bullet? My fear is that these sites will not allow for growth. It is hard to update them and even harder to make them look nice. To get a sample - beware: www.counselingphiladelphia.com Even another reason to leave: The slider is non-semantic and terrible SEO. Google won't allow a slider script with tags and a hrefs, so the only way to implement a slider is through a Google Docs Presentation that keeps sliding. I know - terrible SEO (#donthate) but we needed something. Any advice and thoughts would help! Thanks Mozzers!
Web Design | | _Thriveworks0 -
Creating Print Catalog From Ecommerce Product Database
I have seen some kind of free online software that lets you create product catalog layouts based on your ecommerce product database but I can't remember the name of company or the url of their site? Anyone heard of this?
Web Design | | larahill1 -
Best layout pages for SEO
Dear all, what would be the ideal layout of a webpage for SEO? How would a homepage and landingspage look like? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Ben
Web Design | | HMK-NL0 -
Pages vs. Posts for SEO
Hi, I would like your thoughts about pages vs. posts for SEO. I understand the difference in terms of WP structure and have read the SEOmoz blog post about setting up your site for SEO success (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). However, if you're trying to rank for a particular keyword, it seems that either one could work, from an on-page SEO perspective, as far as title tag, URL, meta description, etc. So how do you decide whether to set up a page vs. a post? What are the pros and cons, from an SEO perspective, about using one vs. the other? Thanks in advance! Carolina
Web Design | | csmm0 -
Mozcon London 2010: Top 10 tips - Design for SEO PPT Not Available for Download!
Hi - title says it all really! Just watched the video and throughout it they refer to the wireframes/site examples being available via the ppt download. However, even as a PRO member having purchased the DVD bundle I cannot find a link to download the presentation. Can anyone help please? Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | BlakMajik0