How can we improve our e-commerce site architecture to help best preserve Page Authority?
-
Today I installed the SEOMoz toolbar for Firefox (very cool, highly recommended). I was comparing our site http://www.ccisolutions.com to this competitor: http://www.uniquesquared.com
For the most part, the deeper I go in our site the more the page authority drops. We have a few exceptions where the page authority of a subcategory page is actually better than the cat. page one level up.
In comparison, when I was looking at http://www.uniquesquared.com I noticed that their page authority stays at "21" on every single category page I visit. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Is this potentially a problem with the tool bar or, is there something significantly different about their site architecture that allows them to maintain that PA across all category and sub category pages?
Is there something fundamentally wrong with our (http://www.ccisolutions.com) site architecture?
I understand that we have longer URLs, but this is an old store with a lot of SKUs, so we have decided not to remove the /category/ and /product/ from the URLs because the 301 redirects that would result wouldn't pass all of the authority they've built up over the years.
Interested to know viewpoints on the site architecture and how it might be improved. Thanks!
-
Hi Keri,
I just went back and checked this again and the same results just happened. Here is another post in Q&A from today where someone else is noticing the same problem:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/page-authority-is-the-same-on-every-page-of-my-site
I am going to email help as you suggested. Thanks!
-
Thanks Keri. I will take a look and if it is the same I'll definitely email.
-
Hi Dana,
I don't know the operation of the toolbar well enough to say, but we did roll out an index update this afternoon. I think it started after you wrote this, but for the heck of it, could you come back and look at this and see if you're still seeing the same PA on every page you visit? If so, it's probably something to send an email to help@seomoz.org about, as they can look into it better.
Thanks!
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
-
SEO Audit for site redesign
I'm in the process of preparing my company's ecommerce site for a redesign - largely to move to a responsive design and improve issues with UI and some much-needed features. This is a very small ecommerce business (Less than $300K annually), and we have settled on Magento Community Edition for our platform. We understand it to be very "SEO" friendly, and its similar to our current platform - it gives us a lot of flexibility in design, and it appears scalable. While I am aware of our current sites shortcomings (from an SEO standpoint), I was wondering if I should employ an SEO person/company to do a pre/post redesign audit. I looked at the MOZ checklist, and ran my site through Hubspot and WooRanks free tools, and am aware of what they are reporting as SEO items to be fixed. As I am so small, I was wondering if an SEO audit in addition to what I already know might be overkill? Any thoughts/suggestions are welcome.
Web Design | | Artfx1 -
Funnel tracking with one page check-out?
Hi Guys, I'm creating a new website with a one page checkout that follows the following steps:
Web Design | | Jerune
1. Check availability
2. Select product
2. Select additional product & Add features
3. Provide personal information
4. Order & Pay I'm researching if it is possible to track all these steps (and even steps within the steps) with Google Analytics in order to analyse checkout abandonment. The problem is only that my one-page checkout has only one URL (I want to keep it that way) and therefore can not be differentiated on URL in the Analytics funnel. To continue to the next step also the same button (in a floating cart) in used to advance. The buttons to select/choose something within one step are all different. Do you guys know how I can set this up and how detailed I can make this? For example, is it also possible to test at which field visitors leave when for example filling in their personal information? Would be great if you can help me out!0 -
Domain Authority Drop After Website Relaunch
Prior to my website redesign and relaunch on July 10th, our domain authority was 33. 301 redirects were implemented properly. Out or 600 pages, about 200 URLs were modified. Domain authority has dropped to 28. Rankings are terrible. Conversions are awful. What does the domain authority drop mean? I have noticed in the past that a drop in domain authority tends to coincide with more a drop in ranking and a drop in the quality of visitors. The site is www.metro-manhattan.com Thanks,
Web Design | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Best way to move blog from subdomain to folder?
Hey all, Our company has 4 product websites, and each has its own separate blog. They are currently set up as subdomain blogs (blog.company.com) hosted on wordpress.com, but I would like to transition them over to root folders (company.com/blog) in order to improve accessibility and SEO. What is the best way to go about doing this? Should I continue to host the blogs on wordpress or are there better options? Would I migrate the blog posts over or just redirect? I'd like to get a general framework/plan of action going in order to know what to expect. Thanks!
Web Design | | kslusarski0 -
Please help. can't change widgets in wordpress
hey everyone, i am having a weird problem. for some reason. all of a sudden (without me changing ANYTHING) my widget page in the admin dashboard will not let me edit anything what i mean is, i login, go to the widgets page, and then the dropdown menus that you drag widgets into will not let me expand to drop widgets in them. was there a wordpress update i missed? who should i contact? what if i delete the theme and re-install. will i have to change ALL the settings back again?
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Spammy page titles and the consequences
Hiya Mozzers! A pal who works in SEO has suggested I add the following type <title>tag structure to my pages:<br /><br />Bars in New York - Bars New York [no brand name]</p> <p>Pizzas in New York - Pizzas New York [no brand name]</p> <p>Firstly, I think this looks spammy, secondly, can't understand the logic of both combinations, thirdly, my understanding is brand name lessens importance of keyphrases, but it's still important from a branding point of view.</p> <p>Fourthly, is this sustainable? I mean, Google could identify this as spammy in the future, with penalty, no? Any feedback on these points would be very useful.</p> <p>Also, he said that I should play around with title tags on an ongoing basis, but I haven't changed any single title tag more than once/6 months for fear of being flagged for manipulative SEO practice by Google. Guidance here would be great as well.</p> <p>Thanking you in advance, Luke</p></title>
Web Design | | McTaggart0 -
Considering site navigation options
I am working on a site redesign and re evaluating concepts I haven't thought about for a few years. I generally see site navigation that is either "top-down" or "left bar". Top down navigation normally uses the left nav. for search refinements. The benefit of top nav. is that it clears up the center of the page for non navigation content. The drawback is that you can't fit as many categories in a top nav. Left side nav. can hold a long list of categories, but subcategories are often in the center of the page. In the past, I have preferred to use left nav. with a multi level scroll over search refinement. I believe this allowed users to get to their destination page with fewer clicks. (I have always believed that every required additional click causes lost customers). I also believe that this has caused me to get more juice flowing to deeper pages on sites and better long-tail conversion. This means I have had pages with a LOT of links. With this method, I have tightly controlled my categories. What on other sites are often dynamic search refinements, are on my sites additional categories. I am considering making a site with a top down navigation system. I like the additional screen space in the center I get to work with. Is my assumption about pages created by search refinement wrong? Is it ok for SEO to have a left nav that has a bunch of search refinements that are dynamically created?
Web Design | | EugeneF0 -
Flat vs. Silo Site Architecture, What's Better
I'm in the midst of converting a fairly large website (500+ pages) into WordPress as a content management system. I know that there are two schools of thought regarding site architecture: Those who believe that everything should be categorized, I.E.- website.com/shoes/reebok/running People who believe that the less clicks it takes from the homepage the better. As it stands, our current site has a completely flat architecture, with landing pages being added randomly to the root, I.E.- website.com/affordable-shoes-in-louisville-ky I'm beginning to think that there is a gray area with this. I spoke to someone who says that you should never have a page more than 2 categories/subfolders deep. But if we plan on adding a lot of content doesn't it make sense to set the site up into many categories so we can set a good foundation for adding massive amounts of content. Also, will 301 redirecting to the new structure cause us to lose rankings for certain terms? Any help here is appreciated.
Web Design | | C-Style0