Help us define a category/product structure please

[DWJames]

Hi, Apologies in advance for the long winded question... we need some guidance with our category/product/options structure in our shop.

We primarily sell car parts and lots of our parts have multiple fitments for what is basically the same part. Some ranges can have 1,000s of products. We can't work out what is an appropriate level of information and granularity for our product structure.We recognise the importance of having fitments and specific terms in the product title and URL, but we also know that having loads of almost identical product pages is a definite negative and fragments our SEO potential. But where's the happy medium?

For example, let's say we have a specific brand of brake pad (we'll call it Brako) with 4 different product-models (Super1, Super2, Super3, Super4), each fits 100 different cars, which are made by 10 different manufacturers. We have a few different ways of presenting/splitting up these 400 simple products: (ignore the URLs here, this is just to illustrate the browsing structure & likely product page titles)

1. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 400 product pages inside, 1 product page for each specific combination of brake product-model and car-fitment. /Brako/Brako-Super1-brakes_BMW-M3.html 1 category, 400 product pages, 0 choices on each product page.

2. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 40 products inside, 1 product for each specific combination of brake product-model and car-manufacturer. Each product page would then let you choose from a dropdown which of the 10 specific cars you had. /Brako/Brako-Super1-brakes_BMW.html 1 category, 40 product pages, 10 choices on each product page.

3. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 4 sub-categories inside for the brake product-models with 100 products inside each, 1 product for each specific combination of car-fitment. /Brako/Brako-Super1-brakes/Brako-Super1-brakes_BMW-M3.html 1 category, 4 sub-categories, 40 product pages, 10 choices on the product page.

4. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 4 sub-categories inside for the brake product-models, with 10 products inside each.1 product for each specific combination of brake product-model and car-manufacturer. Each product page would then let you choose from a dropdown which of the 10 specific cars you had. /Brako/Brako-Super1-brakes/brakebrand-Super1-brakes_BMW.html 1 category, 4 sub-categories, 40 product pages, 10 choices on each product page.

5. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 4 products inside, 1 product for each brake product-model. Each product page would then let you choose from 2 dropdowns, each with 10 options: one for car manufacturer, the next for car model. /Brako/Brako-Super1-brakes.html 1 category, 4 product pages, 100 (10x10) choices on each product page.

6. 1 product page containing options to choose all 400 Brako products using 3 drop down boxes: Car Manufacturer, Car Model and Product-Model /Brako/Brako-brakes.html 1 category, 1 product page, 100 (10x10) choices on each product page.

   Or we could mix it up and split the sub-categories by manufacturer:

7. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 10 sub-categories (1 sub-category for each of the car manufacturers with 40 products inside each), 1 product page for each specific variation of car-fitment and product-model. /Brako/Brako-brakes-BMW/Brako-Super1-brakes_BMW-M3.html 1 category, 10 sub-categories, 40 product pages, 0 choices on the product page.

8. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 10 sub-categories (1 sub-category for each of the car manufacturers with 10 products inside each), 1 product page for each specific variation of car-fitment. Drop dowjn box on the product page lets you choose product-model (Super1-4) /Brako/Brako-brakes-BMW/Brako-brakes_BMW-M3.html 1 category, 10 sub-categories, 10 product pages, 4 choices on the product page.

9. 1 category for the Brake Brand with 10 sub-categories (1 sub-category for each of the car manufacturers with  products inside each), 1 product page for each specific variation of product-model. /Brako/Brako-brakes-BMW/Brako-Super1-brakes_BMW.html 1 category, 10 sub-categories, 4 product pages, 10 choices on the product page.

Obviously, option 1) is going to be the best search match for someone searching for 'BMW M3 Brako Super1 brakes' but that page will have almost identical content to 100 other pages and very similar content to a further 300 pages, which takes it's quality ranking down a lot. At the other end of the scale of complexity is option 5) which concentrates all search potential for the Brako Super1 down to a single page, which can be well written and have great content, but wouldn't have a match in the title, url or product name for anyone searching for 'BMW M3 Brako Super1 brakes'. 'BMW M3' would be mentioned in the page, but only once in a drop-down along with 100 other cars and possibly once in the content if there's something noteworthy about that application. So which option would you go for and why?

[DWJames]

Thanks, that's helpful.

We've got a flat URL structure and we don't have category info in the product urls so we're all good there

I'll aim for somewhere in the middle, where the category page can introduce and explain the range, then there's a product page for each product model, with some drop down choices for fitments. That system was well received in our customer tests and seems to make most sense to me.

Just a minor point, but you might want to check your definition of an SKU btw.. The whole point of a 'stock keeping unit' is that each sku relates to a specific variation of a product, and this can be used for stock control and purchasing.
So in your example of the pants, although I can see that there's a parent product which all the variations belong to and it makes sense for this parent product to have the product page with the 6 choices on, I would expect each of the 6 product options to have their own individual sku in the back end of the store.

regards, James

[Everett]

Hello James,

I know this sounds cliche, but do whatever is best for your users.

While I don't agree with the idea that "almost identical content" is ok for thousands of pages on an eCommerce website, I do agree with the statement that you shouldn't make things more complicated than they need to be.

As a general rule, i try to make one product page per sku. If a single sku has multiple variants, I tend to let those variants be selected on the product page. A simple example would be a pair of pants that could be purchased in small, medium or large, as well as in black or white, for a total of 6 possible combinations - but all the same sku.

I like to keep the category information OUT of the product page URls because that creates all sorts of potential problems (like when a single product exists in multiple categories, or gets moved from one to another) and I like to put them all in a /product/ folder so I can easily diagnose issues by, for instance, searching for something like site:yourdomain.com inurl:product to see how many of my products are indexed quickly.

So the URL might look more like:

www.domain.com/product/brako-super1
www.domain.com/product/brako-super2
www.domain.com/product/brako-super3
www.domain.com/product/brako-super4

Once the user gets to that page they can then select options, like which model car they have. However, this may not be the right solution if each vehicle model has its own sku for that product. I'm assuming in this example that there are really only four skus, each with many possible variants.

Yes, this limits your ability to target long-tail, vehicle-specific searches for that product, but you may be able to rank for them anyway if competition isn't extreme for them and you list out on the page which vehicle models/years each product works with. You can put this in a tabbed description area or under a collapsable "See Vehicle Models" div so it doesn't muddy up the rest of the page visually.

In terms of category structure, you can set that up any way you like without affecting the product URLs if done this way. It sounds like your users my enjoy some type of faceted navigation or faceted search options. These are great usability features, but come with their own set of SEO issues that you'll need to look into.

Please let me know if I have missunderstood anything.

Good luck!

[DWJames]

Thanks for the answer
It's left me a little confused though...

Everything I've read recently has suggested that large quantities of scripted/csv imported database product pages will always be ranked as inferior to a small quantity of well written, informative and unique product pages.

Is the thinking that by having loads of pages, you get lots of potential exact matches  for long-tailed or long phrase search terms? So you're casting your net far and wide?

Results from recent user testing we've done show us that our customers prefer a solution with less cluttered category pages and more 'intelligent' product pages where choices can be made.
Maybe a better system of subcategories and filters would help people easily sift through a large category though?

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

Dont make it more complicated than it is.  Option #1 hands down. Almost identical content is not identical content. We have sites with over 1 million skus for tires and auto accessories and small variations, allow them to be differentiated. The car manufacturer, model and year are the best....What you can do to create another small advantage is create an internal naming structure that you use within a category or a sub catgeory. So within the 'BMW M3 Brako Super1 brakes' you create premium, platinum, gold, silver, best , etc.... or you create general terms within the category so with brake pads you would use safest or safety; with headlights you would use brightest; etc...then you apply that separately to each category or manufacturer or model, depnding on how you want to segment it.