Should product variations be visible individually?
-
I can't find any information on this anywhere. We have hundreds of configurable products, all with coloured variations. For example, one of our popular selling chairs comes in 8 different colours. Now, should all these coloured variations be visible individually (and have their own url) or only visible when selected from the dropdown?
The problem is, when they have their own url it's going to cause duplicate content issues. It's merely impossible to write a different brief for the same product in 8 different colours. The second issue is, if they are visible individually, one colour is going to be shown TWICE to users, one being the simple product and one being the main configurable.
I hope you kind people can help!
-
You can look into the use of the Canonical Tags as well and tag the pages you don't want to rank and then make 1 main page with all the color variations.
-
Hello Georgina,
1. You could have all the other colored products available for search if that's a great user experience and just no-follow those categories/ extra colors pages.
2. How about you just make a new product picture and include on the side or bottom a small color palette of the available colors. This way it only takes one glance to see the black chair also comes in 8 other colors.
Do what's best first for your customers, then modify the website/code ect to satisfy search engine best practices as well.
If your customers need to see 8 color variations, i would just add a color swatch to the bottom of the original picture. I would also go through your records and ( pick a main picture color ) of the most popular colors sold for each item, this way you appeal to the most buyers on first glance as well. Every little detail makes a difference.
Hope that helps,
Joe
-
Hi Joe, that's great advice. I guess as long as we mention the colours in the product description Google will pick up on that for searches.
Although there are a couple of downsides to having the alternate colours hidden. We have a colour filter on our website, so if someone is looking for an orange chair for example, the products wont appear.
The second issue is, say for example another customer is looking through our product catalogue for a grey chair, and they see the configurable product with a picture of a black chair... they won't know to click on the product to check out the grey variation. Unless we have further development done and have 'also available in more colours' etc.
Thanks
-
I would keep a separate page/url for the main product and discuss the color options on the same page as more descriptions / options for the specific product. You could optimize the page for your product such as widgets, avialble also as blue widgets, green widgets ect. I would just make a more complete main page and have the option to choose a color during the purchase process.
I think the color options should be contained with the main product page to eliminate the issuers you mentioned as well as provide your visitor with more options and content about that product on 1 page without having to click anywhere else. You may even consider putting a small gallery on the page the client can view of the color options.
Hope that helps,
Joe
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
-
How best to wrap anchor tags around a product tile
Hi Say I am on a Product Listing page on ecommerce website and I have product tiles which contain images and name/price underneath them. Is it better to wrap the whole product tile (image and name/price) in an anchor tag (linking to their product page) or to wrap the image and the name/price underneath in anchor tags separately (linking to the product page) ? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | jtiernanibm0 -
What is the best way to rank for variations of your business name?
Our business name is APVelocity. We are ranking when it is typed APVelocity, however we are finding many people are typing it AP Velocity. When it is typed with a space, we are not ranking. What is the best way to ensure we show up either way?
On-Page Optimization | | mbrowntci2 -
Product Page Links
I have a product category page at https://www.hurtlegear.com.au/s1000rr/ which currently has 38 products on it. Problem is, all the product titles start with the name of the text: "bmw s1000rr" (because that's what they are) - so that means there are 38 anchored internal links on that page, all starting with the same keyword. You can see how that might look to the Google crawler. Recently that page dropped from around 15 to outside the top 100, and Moz tells me that the page is keyword stuffed with "bmw s1000rr" (no suprise) so I'm guessing that may be the reason the page has disappeared out of the SERPs. I don't really want to change all the product titles (then they wouldn't make sense) so I'm just wondering if there is any way around this? Is there some way of telling Google that this is a product category page and therefore to ignore the anchor text in all of those product links? Can/should the links have some kind of markup on them? Or is the page beyond help? Basically I'm looking at a way of keeping the product titles as they are, but avoiding a page penalty from Google somehow. I'm a bit of a newbie, any suggestions would be most appreciated. Cheers, Graeme
On-Page Optimization | | graeme720 -
Product names are defacto identical - How can I modify Title?
Hi! Our site http://www.metecoparts.gr/ help our customers search our inventory of cars for used parts. The way the titles of product pages are structured is: Car Parts – Make Model Year – Brand Name. So for instance this page http://www.metecoparts.gr/car/4074-alfa-romeo-156-1997 have the title "Car Parts Alfa Romeo 156 1997 – Meteco SA" (I have translated Greek words to English) So as you can imagine we end up with a bunch of duplicate titles pages. I’m trying to diversify the titles but the problem is that there aren’t many product identifiers other than body configuration, car color, fuel, engine capacity and engine code. But only color and year of production is partly unique as most Alfa Romeo 156 are 4 door saloons, with 1600cc petrol engine. The only thing that is unique for every product page is the page ID. So should I use it in the page title? Its the only unique identificator but on ther other hand it has no use for our customers. Or is there any other way of having unique titles that I am missing? Please note that in our industry on-page optimization is crucial since there is no social sharing and much link building (who wants to share an old car that is being sold for parts?) Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | Johnlock10 -
404's Wordpress products
Hi Guy's, On a Wordpress website we have a SEO Ultimate plugin running. Every day i get lot's of 404 errors of products that doesn't exist anymore (but are indexed, site: .... ). In the beginning we had lot's of testproduct that are not coming back in the shop. So i was wondering if there is a way to automaticly redirect product when there are out of stock, or not comming back anymore... So my 404's can be fixed. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Happy-SEO1 -
Multi channel product descriptions & dupe content issues
Hi When filling in inventory files to upload to the likes of Amazon clients will usually be copying and pasting the product descriptions from the website product descriptions into the Amazon product description field Should they really be re-written to avoid dupe content issues ? I presume not since it is the official description of the product. Please note that i'm talking here about the manufacturers website/product descriptions and their own Amazon shop descriptions. So theirs is the original authoritative description. Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Links to Product pages
Hello all, I am still rather new to SEO and learning a lot every day. I do have a question. On our product search result pages (example http://shop.ferguson.com/search/bathroom-lighting)
On-Page Optimization | | Ferguson
It is currently set up so the image, text, price etc of a product is linking to that product page. Our question is, if we were to link the image and the product name - will this be seen as two links to the same page? Is this a bad thing having multiple links to the same page? I searched around to see how other ecommerce sites have similar pages setup and it seems they link the image and also the product name, and the description is not click-able, which allows a user to "Highlight" the text (this is not possible on ours) Which would be to correct approach for SEO as well as User Interface, the way we have it set up, or by going with the method of the question I asked, Thank you for any information on this! Nick0 -
Continuous variation of a keyword
Lords, on a site i have optimization job, a specific keyword, for over 5 months, ranging from 7 to +100 position. One day the keyword is there, beautiful on the first page, and another day disappear. I do not understand why this happens, someone has something happened? I can not stabilize it, and is one of the most important for this client. I live in tension, in the morning the first thing I do is search to see whether the keyword is. Obviously it did in the first 2 months, then relaxed as she always comes back : ) Anyone have any idea what might be happening?
On-Page Optimization | | j0a0vargas0