How would you deal with eCommerce sorts?
-
I am reviewing a website that has different activities, and there are many ways to sort them. The issue is that the website is essentially displaying the same information, but in different sorts. Take a look at this search page:
http://www.kijubi.com/AC-Fishing
You are looking for fishing trips here, but you can sort it by city, region, and category. I have decided to "no index" some of these sorts, but I am afraid they might be picking up some long tail traffic on the city and region sorts. For example, "newport beach fishing trips", something like that.
Any suggestions on how to deal with removing all of these duplicate sorts, while still maintaining the traffic that may be received by sorting with some long tail terms?
-
Nice answer
-
I'd expand on Ryan's suggestion as a consideration to just say that you need to be aware that Google continues to work on figuring out how to tap into AJAX accessed content. They may be bad at it now (they are), yet one day they could eventually have it figured out, at which point the duplicate content issue comes back.
Might not be in the next short while - maybe never, yet something to be aware of.
-
Good answer.
-
I would change the sorting to be dynamic, probably with AJAX. That way your users still get the feature but you're not duplicating your content across URLs. I'd target the long tail with landing pages, rather than re-sorted copies of my content.
-
we found ourselves in this very position and it was at a point where we were looking out for issues for a site not indexing.
We removed it but then again you find many examples where it isnt a major issue. Maybe try to combat that with canonicals ?
-
I always recommend clients implement either noindex/follow on sort methods, or block sorting altogether (the first choice being preferred). If there are specific sort methods that consistently provide valuable conversions, these can be considered to be set up as a separate "evergreen" link on the site, but where you would need to add unique content to the page - enough to ensure it reduces (as much as possible) the duplicate content factor.
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
-
How to deal with rel=canonical when using POST parameters
Hi there,
On-Page Optimization | | mjk26
I currently have a number of URLs throughout my site of the form: https://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/o2-academy-islington-hotels/256133#checkin_4-21-2024&checkout_4-22-2024&rooms_1&guests_2&artistid_15878:256133 This sends the user through to a page showing hotels near the O2 Academy Islington. Once the page loads, my code looks at the parameters specified in the # part of the URL, and uses them to fill in a form, before submitting the form as a POST. This basically reloads the page, but checks the availability of the hotels first, and therefore returns slightly different content to the "canonical" version of this page (which simply lists the hotels before any availability checks done). Until now, I've marked the page that has had availability checks as noindex,follow. But because the form was submitted with POST parameters, the URL looks exactly like the canonical one. So the two URLs are identical, but due to POST parameters, the content is slightly different. Does that make sense? My question is, should both versions of this page be marked as index,follow? Thanks
Mike0 -
Word Count - Content site vs ecommerce site
Hi there, what are your thoughts on word count for a content site vs. an ecommerce site. A lot of content sites have no problem pushing out 500+ words per page, which for me is a decent amount to help you get traction. However on ecommerce sites, a lot of the time the product description only needs to be sub-100 words and the total word count on the page comes in at under 300 words, a lot of that could be considered duplicate. So what are your views? Do ecommerce sites still need to have a high word count on the product description page to rank better?
On-Page Optimization | | Bee1590 -
Duplicate ecommerce domains and canonical
Hi everybody! I'd like to discuss the SEO strategy I've thought regarding a client of mine and ask for help because it's a serious case of duplicate content. There is a main website (the business model one) where he compares the cost of medicines in several pharmacies, to show the cheapest shopping cart to the customer. But the shopping has to been made in another domain, within the selected pharmacie, because my country's law in Europe says that is compulsory to sell the medicines only on the pharmacy website. So my client has started to create domains, one for each pharmacy, where the differences between them are only some products, the business information of the pharmacy and the template's colour. But all of them shares the same product data base. My aim is to rank the comparing website (it contains all the products), not each pharmacy, so I've started to create different content for this one. Should I place rel=canonical in the pharmacies domains t the original one? For instance: www.pharmacie1.com >> www.originaltorank.com www.pharmacie2.com >> www.originaltorank.com www.pharmacie1.com/product-10 >> www.originaltorank.com/product-10 I've already discuss the possibilities to focus all the content in only one website, but it's compulsory to have different domains in order to sell medicines By the way, I can't redirect 301 because I need these websites exist for the same reason (the law) He is creating 1-3 new domains every week so obviously he has had a drop in his SEO traffic that I have to solve this fast. Do you think the canonical will be the best solution? I dont want to noindex these domains beacuse we're creating Google Local pages for each one in order to be found in their villages. Please, I'll appreciate any piece of advice. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Estherpuntu0 -
Dealing with updating blog posts
I run a travel and culture blog which means that I write about a lot of upcoming events which recur each year. Usually I title (and slug) the page with the event name and date. When it comes to update the article the next year, sometimes it's as little as changing the date, other times more has changed and it needs to be substantially re-written. Until now, what I've done is update the title, content, and then re-posted (sometimes altering the slug where it's needed to be done). Sometimes it works fine and Google keeps me ranking well, but other times the changes dont get such a great response. I have these options (as far as I can see). Which do you think is best? 1. To create a new article each year and put a message at the start of the previous one to say, click here to read about the 2012 event 2. To continue what I'm doing updating, changing the slug, and re-posting (ie changing the date). 3. To write a new article and insert a 301 redirect. I need to make sure the article appears as a new article in my RSS feed and also on the homepage. Look forward to your ideas! Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ben10000 -
Duplicate products across numerous catalogues on an eCommerce site
We run a site that contains many catalogues aimed at different markets. Products can appear in one or more catalogues. The product copy etc will be on the whole similar maybe even identical across those catalogues. So I'm assuming these will be flagged as duplicates? If so is there a way to fix this other than completely re-writing the copy for each catalogue?
On-Page Optimization | | TTS_Group0 -
How do I Avoid Excessive Internal Links on an eCommerce site?
I think I'm getting dinged for this on Term Target because the page is full of products, which have links to their product page, but I'm not sure.
On-Page Optimization | | PageLogic0 -
Dealing with a category page that is optimised & ranks for same keyword as homepage
Hi, I'm working with a very niche website where only one product is sold. This means there is a small keyword set (just variations of same keyword) that we are optimising for. Currently the homepage www.example.com ranks in position 2 for target term - "sample". But there is also a required deeper page www.example.com/sample which has lots and lots of internal links targeted to "sample" pointing to it. This page ranks position 8. Effectively this is optimising the deeper page for the same keyword as for the home page through internal anchir text. This deeper page must exist as it has much more detailed information about the product. We want the homepage to rank highest and I'm trying to figure out if we are confusing Google and splitting authority between 2 pages. Best result for us would be to have homepage in position 1 and the deeper page can disappear (total visits would increase). So the question is, is there a solution to do this? My initial thought was use canonical tag on the www.example.com/sample page specifiying www.example.com. Can we do this? Its not duplicate content. Other option I considered is to nofollow links to the deeper page. Again not sure if this will have positive or negative impact. My fear is by removing 40 odd internal links with "sample" anchor text will reduce relevancy of the domain as a whole for the "sample" keyword. Any help much appreciated! Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
Is Google Places appropriate for an ecommerce site and blogs
I'm working with a client that has an ecommerce site. He has e physical addresses where they work, however, neither would want customers to go to their office. Is it inappropriate to create a Google Places listing in this situation? I'm working with another client who runs a blog for his PR agency. Is it OK to create a Google Places listing for a blog? He would welcome people to visit his agency.
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340