Tag-URLs in Magento
-
Hello,
I have got a problem concerning Tag-URLs in Magento (the URLs mentioned are just fictitious
At the moment, they look something like this:
(1) http://store.com/tag/product/list/tagId/1/ ... so these URLs are not search engine friendly at all.
Using a Magento extension you could transform them in speaking URLs:
(2) http://store.com/tag/digital-cameras
What would you do if you sold, say, digital cameras and your online shop ranked high for the keyword "digital camera" with URL No. 1 (not search engine friendly). Would you transform (1) in (2) and 301 all non speaking URLs? But would you keep the high ranking for "digital camera" when 301 to URL No. (2).
But, what I'm most concerned of is : There is actually a landing page (category page) for the keyword "digital camera" : http://store.com/digital-cameras.
Shouldn't the last URL rank high for "digital camera"? (instead of the tag URLs). But given the situation above, does it make sense now to 301 the tag URL to the category page? I would perhaps lose my good ranking, wouldn't I?
Thanks a lot for your help!
Martin
-
If you're willing to do a little experimentation, all of these are good ideas. Best of luck.
-
Hi Cyrus,
I'm also a fan of the phrase you mentioned ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it"). But in this case, I'd rather have category pages rank.
The tag page doesn't offer any content. It's just a product listing page (all pages tagged with the label "digital camera" for instance). So when a potential client arrives on the page, I'm not sure he'll find what he's looking for whereas the category pages offers good content, faceted navigation and so on.
Your suggestion, in short, is to make the category page look more relevant to Google for the keyword "digital camera" than the tag-Page?? So I should leave the tag-Page as it is (no 301 to category page??) and link back to the category page in order to strengthen it (several internal links pointing to the category page).. What about altering the meta tags of the tag-Page so that they look less lrelevant for the targeted keyword?
Thanks for your help Cyrus, I really appreciated your answer!!
Bye Martin
-
Hi Martin,
Great question. There is always a risk when you move a URL. And if the URL in question is already ranking well for your keyword, you may consider the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
There have been studies over the years that show that a 301 transfers about 80% of it's link equity to the new URL. Anecdotal evidence suggest this number may be slightly higher when using the canonical tag for the same purpose.
Sounds like you'd really rather have your category page rank instead of the tag page. If this is the case I'd make sure the category page contains truly unique content (and not just a listing of product excerpts). I'd also make sure all my top products linked back to the category page in a prominent fashion. So at the top of my high-ranking tag page, I might insert a keyword rich link pointing to the category landing page.
Of course, if you are already ranking well, you might also consider doing nothing. In this case ask yourself what's best for the customer? Especially the ones landing on the tag page. How can you help them find what they are looking for?
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
I think rel=canonical is a better solution than a 301.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
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
-
Duplicate URL errors when URL's are unique
Hi All, I'm running through MOZ analytics site crawl report and it is showing numerous duplicate URL errors, but the URLs appear to be unique. I see that the majority of the URL's are the same, but shouldn't the different brands make them unique to one another? http://www.sierratradingpost.com/clearance~1/clothing~d~5/tech-couture~b~33328/ http://www.sierratradingpost.com/clearance~1/clothing~d~5/zobha~b~3072/ Any ideas as to why these would be shown as duplicate URL errors?
On-Page Optimization | | STP_SEO0 -
Showing more Duplicate Title Tags Than WMT
This is yet another question between moz vs google WebMaster Tools. In WMT it only shows 5 pages with a total of 18 duplicate titles. But moz is showing 298. It appears the duplicates are canonical links for the most part. What is the discrepancy?
On-Page Optimization | | jamavan0 -
URL structure
Hello all, I am about to sort out my websites link structure, and was wondering which approach to our services page would be best. should we have: services/digital-marketing & services/website-design etc or: digital-marketing/website-design & digital-marketing/seo Basically I see digital marketing as the top level category that is the umbrella term for all of our digital services. But would it make more sense to have service to be the main category and digital marketing within that (along with all the other services from web design to seo)? all thoughts welcome!
On-Page Optimization | | wseabrook0 -
Url structure with dash or slash
Hi There We have a content website. We don't rank well category image related searches but we get quite good traffic for those keywords. Those keywords are mostly like "category images". We want to change our url structure and we have 2 options now. 1- domain.com/category/category-images 2-domain.com/category/images option 1 repeats the category name so it looks spammy option 2 doesn't really have the keyword. any ideas which one tho choose? Thanks! ps: we don't want to use domain.com/category-images (too many root link)
On-Page Optimization | | muminaydin0 -
Minimum Title Tag Length
Hello everyone, I'm curious here, what is the minimum length a Title Tag should be so it doesn't receive the "Title Element Too Short" error here on SEOMoz? Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | Michael-Goode0 -
Two different keywords - one URL
We're new to SEO, but have two keywords that are really not quite the same, but Google has targeted the same URL for us ... which means that SEO Moz is recommending we optimize the same URL, for opposite keywords (using the on page SEO). For example, the keywords (these aren't our keywords) of say, "beer brewing" and "ways to make beer for small breweries" are both pointing at our home page. The on page SEO is showing that "beer brewing" is a rank of say, a google ranking of 9. However, "ways to ..." is a google ranking of 47. So ... what am I supposed to do now? Do I rewrite the page to have "ways to ..." more prominent? I cannot really have the title and h1's include both ... What do I do now? We have about 3 or 4 of these "pairs". -- Anthony
On-Page Optimization | | apresley0 -
Ecommerce Product Subcategory URL
Our website has 5 main categories displayed in tabs in the header. The main landing page of each of the 5 categories is a paginated page (3pages- set up with canonical tags to avoid duplicate content) with a side bar which splits the main category into many subcategories. Each of these subcategories essentially filter the main landing page into more defined categories customers find useful (price/colour) BUT once clicked enter into a separate landing page. We have worked hard to avoid any duplicate content issues between these sub-landing pages and the main landing page. This was done as we wanted each of the subpages to organically rank (thus we went with this method rather than filters). Hope we didn't do the wrong thing there? The question is should these sub-landing pages route straight from home to have the best chance to get individually ranked or routed through the main category bearing in mind we have 5 main categories each with many subcategories. i.e. domain.co.uk/subcategory or domain.co.uk/category/subcategory Thanks in advance for any advice given.
On-Page Optimization | | jannkuzel0 -
Nofollow tags
So on the homepage, should all the links like privacy, contact us, etc...be rel="nofollow" ? I want to get a better handle on passing as much link juice on homepage to important internal pages as I can, and want to get it right. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | azguy1