Is this CSS solution to faceted navigation a problem for SEO?
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Hi guys. Take a look at the navigation on this page from our DEV site:
http://wwwdev.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/handheld-microphones
While the CSS "trick" implemented by our IT Director does allow a visitor to sort products based on more than one criteria, my gut instinct says this is very bad for SEO. Here are the immediate issues I see:
- The URL doesn't change as the filter criteria changes. At the very least this is a lost opportunity for ranking on longer tail terms. I also think it could make us vulnerable to a Panda penalty because many of the combinations produce zero results, so returning a page without content, under the original URL. This could not only create hundreds of pages with no content, there would be duplicates of those zero content pages as well.
- Usability - The "Sort by" option in the drop down (upper right of the page) doesn't work in conjunction with the left Nav filters. In other words if you filter down to 5 items and then try to arrange them by price high to low, the "Sort" will take precedence, remove the filter and serve up a result that is all products in that category sorted high to low (and the filter options completely disapper), AND the URL changes to this: http://wwwdev.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/IAFDispatcher regardless of what sort was chosen...(this is a whole separate problem, I realize and not specifically what I'm trying to address here).
Aside from these two big problems, are there any other issues you see that arise out of trying to use CSS to create product filters in this way? I am trying to build a case for why I believe it should not be implemented this way. Conversely, if you see this as a possible implementation that could work if tweaked a bit, and advice you are willing to share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Thank you to Travis for pointing out the the link wasn't accessible. For anyone willing to take a closer look we can unblock the URL based on your IP address. If you'd be kind enough to send me your IP via private message I can have my IT director unblock it so you can view the page. Thanks!
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Thanks David. Yes, we did this for Travis who responded above. Would you be interested in taking a look as well? If you private message me your username I can have my IT Director set up access for you.
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If you set the site to display using an ip address and the username, that will allow others to view the site
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Travis, if you are willing to take a closer look, I can have our IT Director allow you to view the page by unblocking just your IP address. If you send it to me via private message I'll have him do that. Thanks in advance!!
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Ah I was afraid of that. Yes, only visible on our internal network. I am going to do a short video capture and also check with IT to see if I can get limited access so the page can be viewed externally. Thanks Travis!
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The URLs don't resolve. Would love to take a closer look.
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