Duplicate Product Descriptions for Each Variant
-
Hi,
I am setting up a Shopify e-commerce store and I have a questions about duplicate product descriptions. I have written unique product descriptions for all our products. Each product has at least 10 color options. I am thinking that it would look better if I created each color variant as a unique product. i.e. store.com/nice-shirt-blue, store.com/nice-shirt-red ect.
Here is the kicker. Would I be penalized for using the same product descriptions for each product type?
-
David,
You are absolutely right. Ultimately it depends on whether customers will search by color or not. Thank you for clarifying this.
Cheers,
-
If you use rel=canonical on product pages, you risk not having all of them indexed and missing out on long tail traffic. Focus on making sure each page can get served in the SERPs.
-
I have dealt with this and I think there are a few questions to ask.
1. Do the different color variations provide keyword opportunities. for example, are people searching for nice-shirt-blue and nice-shirt-red, or are they just searching for nice-shirt?
2. If it does not provide any sort of search benefit to separate the shirts, then you may consider combining them into one product page. You may consider providing an image with an array of the products on your overview page to show that there are multiple colors within the product page. This will ensure that any links built to this product are not spread over multiple product pages. Also, from a usability standpoint, is it likely easier for a customer to click through images on one page to decide the color that they want rather than to click the back button to find the new product.
3. Finally, if you decide that it is better for your customer's experience to keep the products on two separate pages, but the color don't provide any keyword or search benefits, you may consider choosing one color (say blue) and setting a rel=canonical on the other colour variations to the blue shirt page.
Ultimately, it boils down to "what is the best for your customer". Search engines ultimately care about user experience, so if you are able to create the best experience first, then decide whether unique descriptions, rel=canonical, or configured pages are best for you.
Hope this helps!
-
Matt Cutts has posted a few videos about duplicate content and the take away is that it won't hurt you unless it's spammy. A legit e-commerce site shouldn't be negatively impacted by duplicate content issues.
If you're worried about it, why not have only one product page for these products and then just have color chooser that page? This way you'll only have one product page and a lot less duplicate content.
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
-
Can we link back from help documents to product or features pages on website?
Hi, We have all our help documents on subdirectory linked for all the features or products we provide. Like we linked website.com/help/seo-guide from website.com/services/seo-product as that is relevant guide. Do we need to link back from all help guide pages to product pages? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Ecommerce web design read more toggle vs menu link on home page and product pages
Hello, We have an Ecommerce store. We have a lot of content on the home page and product pages and we are going back and forth between which one to use between a toggle "Read More" "Show Less" toggle for each section and a anchor linked menu. We have long product pages We're thinking a read more toggle is more appropriate for category descriptions so that they can go at the top of the category and not take up space. But the read more toggle with lots of content scrolls the page down and doesn't scroll it back up when you hit "show less" We're leaning towards a linked menu for the home pages and product pages for this reason, but an accordion type set of toggles would look nicer. What do you recommend, and how have you set up your read more toggles if they have lots of info so that they are not confusing? Are there other options? ' Not looking for code (I can do that) I'm looking for ideas on the cleanest home page, category pages, and product pages when they have tons and tons of textual content. Wanting to trim it up and make it look compact and neat! Thanks!
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Regarding rel=canonical on duplicate pages on a shopping site... some direction, please.
Good morning, Moz community: My name is David, and I'm currently doing internet marketing for an online retailer of marine accessories. While many product pages and descriptions are unique, there are some that have the descriptions duplicated across many products. The advice commonly given is to leave one page as is / crawlable (probably best for one that is already ranking/indexed), and use rel=canonical on all duplicates. Any idea for direction on this? Do you think it is necessary? It will be a massive task. (also, one of the products that we rank highest for, we have tons of duplicate descriptions.... so... that is sort of like evidence against the idea?) Thanks!
Web Design | | DavidCiti0 -
Duplicate Content Home Page http Status Code Query
Hi All, We have just redone a site wide url migration (from old url structure to new url structure) and set up our 301's etc but have this one issue whereby I don't know if' it's a problem of not. We have 1 url - www.Domain.co.uk**/** which has been set up to 301 redirect back to www.domain.co.uk However, when I check the server response code, it comes back as 200. So although it appears to visually 301 redirect if I put the url in the tool bar, the status code says different. Could this be seen as a potential duplicate home page potentially and if so , any idea how I could get around it if we can't solve the root cause of it. This is on a cake php framework, thanks PEte
Web Design | | PeteC120 -
Are URL suffixes ignored by Google? Or is this duplicate content?
Example URLs: www.example.com/great-article-on-dog-hygiene.html www.example.com/great-article-on-dog-hygiene.rt-article.html My IT dept. tells me the second instance of this article would be ignored by Google, but I've found a couple of instances in which Google did index the 'rt-article.html' version of the page. To be fair, I've only found a couple out of MANY. Is it an issue? Thanks, Trisha
Web Design | | lzhao0 -
Ecommerce SEO - product sort order
Hi, I've been trying to find the answer to this in google but having no luck. In the current era, is it damaging to have products ordered randomly in an ecommerce website? Also, how long would you suggest is a good length of time to establish your natural rank? Ive launched and still work on several succesful ecommerce sites, but have recently launched a completely new venture - brand new url, brand new site and it has been live for around 5 weeks now, and although it is being found in search, it isnt doing as well as i'd like using the moz pro tools ive picked up some issues and have in the last few days tweaked page titles, added 'nofollow' to all my filters, added content etc, so I feel as though ive reset the clock. the site (it's an adult site by the way) is www.lovesauce.co.uk - would appreciate some feedback from the pro's
Web Design | | tom.dollar0 -
Does **tag on a product description help?**
Hi, Does using the tag on a line of text in the products description help with SEO for that keyword phrase? **See here: http://www.designerboutique-online.com/tops/passarella-death-squad/passarella-death-squad-t-shirt-white/0/ I have bolded the Passarella Death Squad T-Shirt line. Would this help in any way? Cheers Will**
Web Design | | YNWA0 -
Meta Title and Description for click through optimization
I have a few years experience optimizing PPC text for click-through and conversion rates. I don't see many web sites that are using these methods for their organic listings generated from meta tags. Why is this? So many meta tags seem to be either keyword stuffed or auto generated. From my research, it seems that keywords in meta tags mean little to search engine optimization other than the fact that vertically aligning keywords from search phrase to listing to landing page is important. (Just like it is in PPC). Now that I am personally doing more than just PPC, I have begun rewriting meta text for increased conversions. The search results look to me like My web site is the only one doing this. Is everyone missing out on something, or am I missing something?
Web Design | | EugeneF0