Analyzing ZAPPOS.com - how do they get away with it?
-
Hi All,
The fun thing about our industry is that unlike poker - most cards are open.
While trying to learn what the big guys are doing I chose to focus on www.Zappos.com - one of the largest sports wear (especially shoes).
I looked how they categories, interlink and on their product pages.
I have a question about duplication in an age where it is SO important.
If you look in their running sneakers category you'd see that they show the same item (in different color) as two separate items - how are these pages no considered duplication?It gets even worse - If you look inside a shoe page (a product page) in the tab "About the Brand" you'd learn that all shoes from Nike (just an example) the about the brand is exactly the same. This is about 90% of the page for hundreds of Nike shoes pages - and goes the same for all other brands.
How come they are ranked so high and not penalized in the era of Panda?
Is it as always - big brands get away with anything and everything?Here are two example shoe pages:
Nike Dart 10 (a)
Nike Dart 10 (b)Thanks!
-
As I said, that is what I would recommend doing. Zappos is not, and it could easily be due to limitations with their eCommerce or fulfillment systems since each color is probably a different sku. It could just as easily be due to the ability of these pages to rank better for each color, in which case they have an advantage over most other competitors because they can get away with it, as you have noticed.
-
Thanks for the detailed answer.
If you are putting a canonical tag then why not simply have one page with a drop down for colors?
-
Hello BeytzNet,
It is not uncommon at all for ecommerce sites to have product variants like this, each with their own SKU. They are, after all, two different products. If someone ordered one color and got the other they would be upset. If someone searched Google Shopping for Gray Nike Shoes and ended up on a page for Pink Nike Shoes it would not be a good experience for them.
Yes, a better way to do this would be to have unique on-page content for each variant of this shoe, or even to have one page that allows the user to choose their color from a drop-down list (oh wait, Zappos does that too...) so the page isn't optimal, but it is unlikely that Google would see this as something worth applying a penalty for. They would more likely just decide to rank only one version. Rather than being sneaky, it is probably just a scalability problem.
With that said, I know lots of lesser-known brands and websites that have been hit hard by Panda for similar "scalability problems". The fact that big, well-known brands can get away with a lot more is something that has been going on for a long time and isn't about to change any time soon. So to answer your question "how do they get away with it" - They get away with it by being a huge, well-known brand. It sucks, but that apparently provides a better user experience for Google searchers. I don't think there is any malicious purpose to that (e.g. Adsense revenue, helping Google partner sites...), rather it has to do with the way we, as searchers, react to branding by clicking on the results we are already familiar with and buying from sites we already trust.
If I were to handle the same situation I'd probably choose a canonical version and redirect the other pages to it since writing unique copy for each color shoe wouldn't be scaleable for a site that size. Of course you would lose some ability to rank for color-specific searches, but you could minimize that by listing the colors out in title or on-page content while allowing the user to select the color from a drop-down.
-
Cody that is not accurate. Only one of the pages references ...10~2 as the canonical URL. The other ones uses <link rel="canonical" href="/nike-dart-10~1" />.
-
It's because they utilize canonicals to specify the url that should get all of the authority. Both of your examples have this:
<link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="[/nike-dart-10~2](view-source:http://www.zappos.com/nike-dart-10%7E2)" /><script type="<a class="attribute-value">text/javascript</a>">
-
Hi, great question and find.
I recently read an article, I think that it was from distilled, on SEO Myths. One of the Myths was about duplicate content penalties.
"has the potential to dilute link equity," but apparently google weren't imposing serious penalties,
It was an interesting little piece, but i would suggest they are using a lot of no follow links.
As an e commerce developer, product variations are a hard one to index well.
I would be interested to get a few takes on how people are doing it well.
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
-
Is there a benefit to changing .com domain to .edu?
Hey All! I'm wondering if there is any benefit (or if benefit could possibly outweigh the cost) to changing a domain from .com to a new .edu domain. The current .com domain has decent credibility already, and the .edu will have never been used before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | frankandmaven1 -
How Can I Rank My Website Quickly and get traffic 20k per months
Hello moz webmasters, PLZ tell me How Can I Rank My Website Quickly and get traffic 20k per months. if you have backlinks lists of edu and gov sites plz donate me. check my site https://www.steemseo.com [Link removed by a forum moderator.]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tushartosi0 -
I've screwed up. Domain pointers I forgot about. Think I am getting dinged by google.
Hey all. I setup some domain pointers for a client 8 years ago and now think they are hurting them. I am afraid google thinks it duplicate content. They are pointers so you can get to the same page using other domain names. Is my best approach to do a 301 redirect on them? The client is on a shared host so I have to use the web.config file. The site is pretty small so doing it for the 10+ pages is not that big of a deal. My question is this? When should I drop those pointers from the website altogether?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DougDeVore0 -
Why is my featured expert tip being nofollowed by Examiner.com?
Hey guys, I recently got a press hit featuring a tip I provided for an article on marketing medical practices. The article is on examiner.com and I am wondering what their reason may be for no-following the links in their articles ...ttp://www.examiner.com/article/the-biggest-challenges-medical-marketing-and-how-to-overcome-them-1 Don't get me wrong, I understand and am excited about the intrinsic benefits of being featured in such an article...just wondered why something like that would be no-followed! Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks, Ricky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Splitting sites similar to Diapers.com
Our site (theoilhub.com) sells automotive products. We want to split it into multiple sites (autoparthub,com, motoparthub.com) and so on. Some products will be listed on multiple domains because they have application in multiple domains (lubricants, helmets...). I was wondering what the best solution was for avoiding any problems with Google detecting too much duplicate content from our sites? would doing rel=canonical help? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theoilhub0 -
Have you guys seen this yet: panguintool.com to help identify what hit the ranks
Have you guys seen this yet: panguintool.com Works with GA to show traffic superimposed with Panda/Penguin/other
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irvingw
updates to help discover what hit the ranks. Looks interesting, requests access to your GA account.0 -
Getting backlinks without content marketing
Hey i have a client who currently has a large ecommerce store with over 50,000 hits a months. I've made the recommendation that they should consider adding a blog and invest in content activities. However they won't be able to do so for quite some time. In the mean time what are some ways i can get backlinks (whitehat only). I'm thinking guest posting on high DA blogs and sites is the best bet. Also sponsorship, CSR activties, and the occasional press release. Can anyone recommend any other ways, or methods i can use to obtain good quality links, or articles which discuss this topic. Thanks, Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monster990 -
Can your site be penalized for changing the url structure and if so how long till you get back?
I'm doing well on yahoo and bing and the only reason I can think of for why I'm not showing on Google is because I changed the url structure a couple of months ago. I have solid on and off page done for this site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | deciph220