Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
E-Commerce Website Architecture - Cannibalization between Product Categories and Blog Categories?
-
Hi,
I have an e-commerce site that sells laptops.
My main landing pages and category pages are as follows:
"Toshiba Laptops", "Samsung Laptops", etc.We also run a WP blog with industry news.
The posts are divided into categories which are basically as our landing pages.
The posts themselves usually link to the appropriate e-commerce landing page.
For example: a post about a new Samsung Laptop which is categorized in the blog under "Samsung Laptops" will naturally link somewhere inside to the "samsung laptops" ecommerce landing page.Is that good or do the categories on the blog cannibalize my more important e-commerce section landing pages?
Thanks
-
I do often agree with your assessment and perhaps I should have worded it as "you might want to consider" instead of "make sure".
Its because in certain circumstances, having a blog post about something like "5 Reasons the New Toshiba Laptop is Awesome" with a link to your ecommerce page selling the product could be considered a paid link or the post may be seen as an advertorial. Because you sell laptops and you're writing a blog post about laptops that includes a link to the sale of laptops on your own site, there is concern it _migh_t be devalued especially after all the news concerning press release links and advertorials in recent months.
Of course, much of this is conjecture and the more I think about it the more it would seem that the people I've seen concerned about being hit for something like that are people that have been doing other, more sketchy things.
-
No problem. This isn't the clearest example of what I am talking about, but it was the one that I had open in a tab when I got the email notification of your question!
http://www.backcountry.com/3-season-tents
The top of that page has three guides. There are three more at the bottom. Those guides are in a place where customers are more likely to see/use them. That makes sense as they are also great sales tools. Those that open in a modal window for that page also mean that the category page becomes the page that attracts links rather than the blog page.
-
Thanks Mat for the reply.
I didn't quite understand what you meant... Can you provide an example of an e-commerce site you feel that implements it well? (doesn't need to be one related to you).
Thanks
-
Your ending was hilarious:
"hurt you depending on Google guidelines for the given month/week/day"
About nofollow and violating Google:
I think that having a call to action at the end of every post is legit and obvious (for example at the end of "Toshiba Laptops" post having a "Looking for a Toshiba Laptop?" button). It doesn't make sense to me nofollowing it. Doing so will only waste the juice I'm nofollowing - Google stated that no following links that not pass over more juice on the others, it simply wastes it.Look at Hubspot's blog for example, at the end of each post they offer an ebook or something. All of the links are followed.
What do you think?
-
I've always been more of an "if they cannibalized then cross-link" type of person, followed up with a hint of "tweak accordingly". If our blogs are ranking well for something and drawing in more people than the actual product page, it could be that more people are just looking for information and not necessarily purchasing... of course there's the AIDA conversion funnel to consider as well. Why not make sure there is a prominent link/call to action that users can follow once they're done digesting the info so then they can look at the product page and (hopefully) convert? And make sure the link is NoFollow or it could be seen as unnatural and/or inadvertently hurt you depending on Google guidelines for the given month/week/day.
-
Your structure is probably the most common. As you say though, you do risk cannibalising your own results. You could no-index the blog categories.
My preferred approach is to have blog and store more closely integrated. This can allow you to do away with blog category pages entirely, and have those as part of the e-commerce category. Bringing the content closer to the products brings a number of benefits in terms of both SEO and Conversions. It also results in much richer category pages which can be another big win.
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 The HREF Link "Title" Tag Needed on Mobile Websites?
Hello To Those Who Are Wiser Than I, I am wondering if the href link "title" tag is needed, or serves any purpose, on mobile websites? Also, does it effect SEO in any way? I ask because generally the href link title tag provides more information to the user when they scroll their mouse over the link - but this action does not happen on mobile! Users have no mouse and thus no extra information would be displayed. I'm really wondering if it still matters for SEO purposes on mobile though. -The UnEnlightened
Web Design | | Stew2220 -
WordPress Category page title h1 or h2
Hi friends, I know this is a minor technical change, but we are in an extremely competitive market and I don't want to have any points against us. On our WordPress Category pages i.e. http://www.domain.com/category/�tegory-title%/ I looked at the code behind the the Title of the category page, which is "Browsing: %Category Title%" The code is an h2. I look at the posts in the category archive below, and those are also h2's. The theme preview is here and you can click on Entertainment - Reviews to see exactly what I'm referring to - http://themeforest.net/item/smartmag-responsive-retina-wordpress-magazine/full_screen_preview/6652608 I changed the code for the "Browsing: %Category Title%" to h1, which I believe is more consistent and standard formatting. 1. Is this a correct technical on-page optimization? 2. Would it be beneficial to remove "Browsing"?
Web Design | | JustinMurray0 -
Website Home page suddenly disappeared after changing Hosting
HI All, My site was ranking very well and was in 1st page of google for most of my keywords. Last week we did some update to the site and moved it to new hosting and from then onwards I dont see my site home page in Google ranking . My Website Name is : royalevents.com.au. We used to be in 1st of Google for keywords like wedding Mandaps, Indian Wedding Mandaps etc, Would be great if some one helps us to figure out whats gone wrong .. I also did Webmaster Fetch as Google but nothing happened. Thanks
Web Design | | Verve-Innovation0 -
Multiple websites for different service areas/business functions?
I'm wondering what the implications are for having multiple domains for different service areas of a company? I realize having multiple domains for one company can be troublesome because of the possibility of duplicate content, keyword cannibalization, and linkbuilding to multiple domains. But when the domains are for very different service offerings/unique business functions that each serve their own purpose (and have different positionings), is there a downside to having more than one domain? Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Web Design | | KevinBloom0 -
Blog is outranking ecommerce store
My client has a blog that posts information about products to support its ecommerce store. The blog's main purpose is to support the products listed on the main website, but it has become so strong that its posts sometimes rank in the SERPS in place of the website product page, which is undesirable. The blog posts always link to the product that they are supporting. Are there any other methods, other than doing a 301, that could help the product page to rank instead of the blog post?
Web Design | | pugh0 -
WordPress blog hosted on GoDaddy domain mapping help
We set up a WP blog that's hosted through GoDaddy. For various reasons, we purchased a URL to use to get through the technical build and set up and are trying to map that to a subdomain of our company website. (We can't host it on our own server, unfortunately). My question is: for WP blogs hosted via WP you can buy a domain mapping upgrade and I'm trying to find a similar plugin that could offer the same thing that would apply to our GoDaddy hosting and point to our subdomain (GD apparently doesn't offer the domain mapping). Anyone have any thoughts, please?
Web Design | | josh-riley0 -
Where is the best place to put reciprocal links on our website?
Where should reciprocal links be placed on our website? Should we create a "Resources" page? Should the page be "hidden" from the public? I know there is a right answer out there! Thank you for your help! Jay
Web Design | | theideapeople0 -
Site-wide footer links or single "website credits" page?
I see that you have already answered this question before back in 2007 (http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/2163), but wanted to ask your current opinion on the same question: Should I add a site-wide footer link to my client websites pointing to my website, or should I create a "website credits" page on my clients site, add this to the footer and then link from within this page out to my website?
Web Design | | eseyo0