How to optimize achor text links on ecommerce category page
-
A category page on an e-commerce sites, containing a list of the products within the category, usually shows the product image above the product text link. If both image and anchor text link to the product page, this would mean that the image is counted as the link in terms of ranking value.
What would be the best way to make the anchor text count in stead of the image? I guess some ways would be:
1. Not making the product image a link
2. Using some kind of link masking / redirecting technique for the image
3. Employing a technical trick to make the anchor text link come first in the code readable by search engines.What would be the easiest way to solve this issue? Or do you believe it's not worth bothering?
-
This pretty much mirrors what I was going to say....
"I can't find an example of how it would be coded (check link above!), but you could look at having a single ahref stemming from the product text, and expand the clickable area to include the image. This would get around your issue, and I've always thought that having multiple links to a single product like that is sub-optimal.
I'm not sure how much added SEO benefit this would have, but all the small things..."
-
Here is a link to an insteresting thread on this topic in the GWT forums: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/1yhb_xcdtZ0
Judging from what top level contributors have said there, linking images and text links pass the same amount of PR, with a very tiny amount of advantage to anchor text for a text link versus anchor text from the image alt text. Ultimately, do what's best for the user. In this case, for e-commerce, I think the image link taking precedence is just fine.
Dana
-
On our category pages we display products like displayed below. It is semantically correct, as all the elements inside the link are inline elements - it would not validate if we had a
in there as that is a block-element. However, in order to be able to style them correctly, we have added "display: block;" in the stylesheet making it easier to work with.
[
Name
Price](link_to_product)
Does anyone know what this setup has of impact on Google picking up anchor text etc.? Technically, we have an image, a name, and a price, where normally only a name is displayed. Is there some way, in which we can specify what should be counted for/valued as the anchor text (in this case )?
Thanks
-
Is this worth the effort or change in design?
Isn't it that google looks at the 1st link on a page?
So if you have 6 products and images this issue would only effect the 1st product seen?
Thanks
Handcrafter
-
You could design your product pages around having the anchored text link appear first, perhaps in an above description or blurb, and once again under the photo.
-
Hi all, i notited this discussion in another question (http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-to-properly-link-to-products-from-category-page)
I answered there with a technical solution, which i also would like to share here.
I made a fiddle about it, what do you think? Is it over optimization, or is it just a nice trick to get only one link, which is really well optimized?
-
Using a no-follow will loose link juice,
-
Firstly, I wondered if there are any news about this discussion...
Secondly, I wondered why it matters.
Is it because Google will consider only the first link from page A to B?
If that is the case (assuming you can't change the look and feel of the site) won't adding nofollow to the image link will solve the problem?Thanks
-
Perhaps add a no follow to the imageand move the link above the image . Currently you might have
you need to make it something like
<a <strong="">rel="nofollow" href="product.php"></a>
-
Just curious, would no-following the image link work?
-
Hi! We're wondering how your project is going, and if you made a decision and can share any results, or if you're sill looking for advice. Thanks!
-
This is unlkely to have too much of an impact on your rankings. I would recommend looking at the top 3 or 5 for your chosen keyword and look at what they're doing. I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over this, just make sure your images are optimised too and maybe go with #3 if you're really keen to make the change.
-
Thanks Ryan, that's really helpful. Regarding #3: could you still make the anchor text link appear below the image for users, but have it come first in the source code for search engines? Any suggestion for how that would look like in terms of code?
Could you also do this with a block of text that appears at the bottom of the page, but is placed on top in the code? As having static text on the category page is important for SEO, but you might want to have users seeing the products before the text.
-
A very common issue to encounter!
#1: Absolutely not! People click on images.
#2: Too much effort and possibly risky in Google's eyes.
#3: This isn't really a trick. Just update the template that generates the page and move the linked text ahead of the image. Any developer could handle this for you.
Hidden option #4: Have the link enclose both the image and the product name. It may invalidate your markup, but if #3 isn't an option, consider this.
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
-
Will Google still ignore the second instance of anchor text on a page if it has an H2 tag on it?
We have a page set up that has anchor text with header tags. There is an instance where the same anchor text is on the page twice linking to the same page, and I know that Google will ignore the second instance. But in the second instance it also had an H2 tag (which I removed and put it on the first instance of anchor text even though it's smaller). Is this good practice?
Technical SEO | | AliMac260 -
Remove page with PA of 69 and 300 root domain links?
Hi We have a few pages within our website which were at one time a focus for us, but due to developing the other areas of the website, they are now defunct (better content elsewhere) and in some ways slightly duplicate so we're merging two areas into one. We have removed the links to the main hub page from our navigation, and were going to 301 this main page to the main hub page of the section which replaces it. However I've just noticed the page due to be removed has a PA of 69 and 15,000 incoming links from 300 root domains. So not bad! It's actually stronger than the page we are 301'ing it to (but not really an option to swap as the URL structure will look messy) With this in mind, is the strategy to redirect still the best or should we keep the page and turn it into a landing page, with links off to the other section? It just feels as though we would be doing this just for the sake of google, im not sure how much decent content we could put on it as we've already done that on the destination page. The incoming links to that page will still be relevant to the new section (they are both v similar hence the merging) Any suggestions welcome, thanks
Technical SEO | | benseb0 -
Page titles in browser not matching WP page title
I have an issue with a few page titles not matching the title I have In WordPress. I have 2 pages, blog & creative gallery, that show the homepage title, which is causing duplicate title errors. This has been going on for 5 weeks, so its not an a crawl issue. Any ideas what could cause this? To clarify, I have the page title set in WP, and I checked "Disable PSP title format on this page/post:"...but this page is still showing the homepage title. Is there an additional title setting for a page in WP?
Technical SEO | | Branden_S0 -
To many links on page. Big or small issue for eCommerce
On my site I have around 3k pages and about 90 categories. Most of which have a sensible number of products but some have only a few products and some have loads. if I have say 40 links on the page ignoring the producand is it a big problem if I have more than 60 products on the page? Assuming a link limit per page of 100 user wise we have filters and sorts for thme to find what they breed without issue. But simply from an seo point of view how damaging would I be to have the 23 "to many links on page issues? Worth fixing by making two categories and splitting out products even tho it would hinder the user.
Technical SEO | | mark_baird0 -
Home page indexed but not ranking...interior pages with thin content outrank home page??
I have a Joomla site with a home page that I can't get to rank for anything beyond the company name @ Google - the site works fine @ Bing and Yahoo. The interior pages will rank all day long but the home page never shows up in the results. I have checked the page code out in every tool that I know about and have had no luck....by all account it should be good to go...any thoughts/comments/help would be greatly appreciated. The site is http://www.selectivedesigns.com Thanks! Greg
Technical SEO | | DougHosmer0 -
ECommerce: Best Practice for expired product pages
I'm optimizing a pet supplies site (http://www.qualipet.ch/) and have a question about the best practice for expired product pages. We have thousands of products and hundreds of our offers just exist for a few months. Currently, when a product is no longer available, the site just returns a 404. Now I'm wondering what a better solution could be: 1. When a product disappears, a 301 redirect is established to the category page it in (i.e. leash would redirect to dog accessories). 2. After a product disappers, a customized 404 page appears, listing similar products (but the server returns a 404) I prefer solution 1, but am afraid that having hundreds of new redirects each month might look strange. But then again, returning lots of 404s to search engines is also not the best option. Do you know the best practice for large ecommerce sites where they have hundreds or even thousands of products that appear/disappear on a frequent basis? What should be done with those obsolete URLs?
Technical SEO | | zeepartner1 -
Do we know if inbalanced anchor text distribution also applies to internal links?
I have the pages of my site linked together very well with editorial links in my copy and blog posts. But now I'm starting to wonder post-penguin if it's a problem if all my internal links to a certain page have the same anchor text? Or is my internal link juice not powerful enough to set off a red flag? I don't think I've seen this addressed anywhere or if we even know the answer to this or can only speculate.
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept0 -
How far into a page will a spider crawl to look for text?
How far into a page will a spider crawl to look for text? I've heard a spider will only crawl the first 3kb, but can't find an authoritative source for that information.
Technical SEO | | crvw0