Breadcrumbs for ecommerce site
-
We are doing a major overhaul on our site, and we have some questions about URLs, breadcrumbs and ecommerce.
Currently, a product can reside in multiple categories, and can have multiple URLs based on how a user navigates to the page. We handle this via canonicals, but it's awful for SEO on many levels. O-U-C-H.
The main issue is that a product can reside in multiple categories.
At this point, Plan A for our overhaul is that a product URL is always going to be www.domain.com/product-name-sku.html/. Neat and clean, and avoids end-user confusion if they navigate to the product through a category that doesn't match the URL.
Plan B: We can anchor a product to a category or subcategory, (www.domain.com/category-name/subcategory-name/product-name-sku.html) but we think that this cuts down on usability as users can navigate to a product through different categories, and the URL may not match the user's navigation.
Based on how Google has devalued URLs for ranking purposes, I don't think that there is much of an SEO advantage to Plan B. Am I wrong?
A product can show up in multiple categories - for example:
www.domain.com/womens-clothing/
www.domain.com/womens-clothing/dresses/
www,domain.com/womens-clothing/dresses/maxidresses/
Category breadcrumbs take care of themselves. What is the best practice to handle the breadcrumb on the product page considering that there are multiple paths a user can take to a product? Options:
1. The breadcrumb on the product page dynamically changes based on how the user navigates to the page. The URL is always fixed as per above, but we change the breadcrumb based on the session.
ex: Product: Black Ruffled MuuMuu
Home > Womens Clothing > Black Ruffled MuuMuu
Home > Womens Clothing > Dresses > Black Ruffled MuuMuu
We would be showing Google different breadcrumbs based on how the bot navigates to the page. Are there any issues with this from an SEO perspective as it would seem to provide the better user experience?
2. The breadcrumb on a product page is always fixed. We anchor a product to a category or subcategory and the breadcrumb is always the same no matter how a user navigates to the product. This is simpler from a development perspective, and we are always showing the same breadcrumb to Google. IMHO, this is not as good for usability.
ex: Breadcrumb is always: Home > Womens Clothing > Dresses > Black Ruffled MuuMuu regardless of how a user navigates to it.
Which way would our ecommerce experts recommend?
-
I typically handle this following:
- URL: "Plan A" - for our overhaul is that a product URL is always going to be www.domain.com/product-name-sku.html/. Neat and clean, and avoids end-user confusion if they navigate to the product through a category that doesn't match the URL.
- Breadcrumbs: Option 1 - dynamically changes based on how the user navigates to the page.
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
-
UX and/or Conversion Help for Ecommerce
Good Morning, We recently revamped and relaunched our ecommerce website and we believe we have built a great site that is easy to navigate, find what you're looking for, get all details, and purchase. We were hoping to get some of the Moz community to take a look at the site and let us know if you have any suggestions on usability or conversion techniques that we could implement to improve user experience and amount of orders placed. You can view our site here Looking forward to your feedback. Thanks in advance
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Prime850 -
Help: Trouble converting customers with new adwords campaign for a new site
I have just launched my brand new e-commerce site www.zenory.co.nz We are wanting to expand global as you can see we have com.au and also .com but due to our min budget we had to start with NZ first for organic search and a min monthly budget on adwords which doesn't come close to what our competitors are paying. Really is it worth paying out our limited budget with adwords? Or should be put that into ranking organic search. While we have only just started our adwords PPC campaign and I think it has only been roughly two weeks - We have had around 18 people sign up, to which we have a 3 step process, however, we are struggling to convert and complete a transaction which customer places credit card details in step 3. Does anyone have any ideas around how we could better optimize or perhaps make any suggestions? Our competitors spend rather large amounts of up to 3000k - 300k per month on adwords, and there is just no competing with that. Any suggestions I would definitely be open to... Thanks alot
Conversion Rate Optimization | | edward-may0 -
Microsites vs. one site
My client has created a product that he wants to market to two, very different, audiences. The goal is to funnel them through the site and get them to purchase. My question is about the best SEO strategy on how to do this effectively. Since they are distinct audiences with little in common we've recommended building two microsites, and optimizing each with unique content and different keyword focus. I realize it will be harder to optimize two sites rather than one, but it seems to make sense from a user perspective. But once the users goes to a "non-audience specific" page, like any page that is about the product or company and not about the audience, should we build yet a third website that houses the "company/product pages" and channel the conversions there in order to avoid having duplicate content on the two other sites? Or should we put the same "company pages" on both the Audience A and Audience B websites, only vary the text so it doesn't look like duplicate content. Or is the microsite strategy flawed all together? Please keep in mind this is a brand new product and it has national scope. There is no local focus. We will be building their rankings entirely from scratch. I REALLY appreciate any insights you may have. We have been going around and around about this. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | ptdodge0 -
Advice and recommendations for ecommerce CMS
One of my clients uses oscommerce as the CMS for their ecommerce websites. I think it it quite dated and inflexible for layout and design purposes. We have been looking at Woocommerce plugin with Wordpress as an alternative. Client has the following minimum requirements: 1. Ability to Manually enter and edit existing orders/ 2. Export Orders and Sales Tax Information to QuickBooks etc. 3. Sync inventory with Quickbooks POS. 4. One Page Checkout 5. Ability to either send out directly or through third party integration, a email marketing service to customers. 6. The site needs to be SEO'ed thoroughly so SEO is a top priority. Anyone have any experience with Woocommerce? So far, Woocommerce looks pretty exhaustive, but I am unable to contact WooCommerce for support unless I purchase their theme or extension plugins. Thoughts, advise, recommendations?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | amitramani0 -
Sales pages or one site?
New client in the pensions market and they want to launch a new product. There are They have asked for a site build but my question is Is there a benefit to writing unique copy for this one product on each micro site/sales page and focus on a particular keyword, with an email capture for lead generation and also a link back to the main site. Buy domains with targeted keywords in them : www.workplacepensions.co.uk www.auto-opt-in-pensions.co.uk etc? Thoughts please as it will change my proposal 😉
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Agentmorris0 -
Root or sub domain for my site? (I forgot which I used to target)
Hi there, I'm sorry for what is most likely a daft question with an easy answer. I have searched the web but whilst there are lots of answers about this generally, nothing seems to answer my specific problem. I have just begun relaunching my site - workingfirstaid.co.uk - but basically cannot remember if I used to try and get links pointing to www.work... or work... I know I have so few links already that it probably doesn't really matter, but I don't want to spend time pointing to the wrong version. My internal links point to the non www version, but searching google for [working first aid] brings up the www version. Thanks in advance for your time! Cord
Conversion Rate Optimization | | cordite0 -
Spam to site with GMail addresses - any way to resolve.
We are noticing more and more spam around: Customer Name: Sylvia Abernathy Customer Email: sylviaa386@gmail.com Customer Phone Number: Service Type Requested: Please Choose From List Service description: We found your weblisting on one of the back pages of Google. Wouldn’t you rather be up front? Our experts in Search Engine Optimization can help you become more visible and more productive. A quick email will get you details. This is from a site around auto and truck service and is an actual cut and paste. My question is twofold: Is there a way to report individual Gmail addresses to Google as purveyors of spam and beyond a capcha, is there any other work around? This is form to schedule a service appt. so they are not emailing to an info@etc.com type address. It is a contact form. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | RobertFisher0 -
Ideal product page conversion/retention rate for eCommerce sites
Hi SEOmoz-ers, I was wondering if anyone has data regarding product page abandonment rate (% of potential customers that leave the site after seeing product pages) for websites like Overstock, REI or Zappos? As you may know the above mentioned sites do an exceptional job with product pages. It would be helpful to know what some of the leaders in this space are achieving in terms of conversion rate. What is your personal opinion about this? Thanks,
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Kush_VMI
Kush0