Which is better? One dynamically optimised page, or lots of optimised pages?

[pulcinella2uk]

For the purpose of simplicity, we have 5 main categories in the site - let's call them A, B, C, D, E.

Each of these categories have sub-category pages e.g. A1, A2, A3.

The main area of the site consists of these category and sub-category pages.

But as each product comes in different woods, it's useful for customers to see all the product that come in a particular wood, e.g. walnut. So many years ago we created 'woods' pages. These pages replicate the categories & sub-categories but only show what is available in that particular wood. And of course - they're optimised much better for that wood.

All well and good, until recently, these specialist page seem to have dropped through the floor in Google. Could be temporary, I don't know, and it's only a fortnight - but I'm worried.

Now, because the site is dynamic, we could do things differently.

We could still have landing pages for each wood, but of spinning off to their own optimised specific wood sub-category page, they could instead link to the primary sub-category page with a ?search filter in the URL. This way, the customer is still getting to see what they want.

Which is better?

One page per sub-category? Dynamically filtered by search.

Or lots of specific sub-category pages?

I guess at the heart of this question is? Does having lots of specific sub-category pages lead to a large overlap of duplicate content, and is it better keeping that authority juice on a single page? Even if the URL changes (with a query in the URL) to enable whatever filtering we need to do.

[Aleyda]

Hi Jonathan, Thanks for your question!

The answer depends on:

• The demand: With the search behavior of your users: Do they search for your product using the type of wood in their queries? For example: "Product + Wood Type"? If your users use those terms and queries to search for your products then it would compensate to enable them specifically to be indexable instead of using just a filter that could be non-indexable in many ways (to avoid the crawling of pages that are not meant to be ranked anyway and control your crawl budget).
• The supply: The availability of products and content that you have to match those queries: Do you have enough unique products to feature for each type of wood (or whatever criteria or subcategory) that you have identified that your users search for? Would it be considered a "low quality content" page with little value and offer by the users? With no unique description? Would they end-up penalized by Panda if you decide to index them?

If you identify that there's a demand for those specific type of products that would compensate that you specifically enable these pages to be indexable and rank for them and at the same time you have enough supply, with products and descriptive content to feature in them and satisfy your users, then yes, the best would be to create a static structure for these sub-types or sub-categories, instead of just non-indexable filters. If it's not the case, then the best would be to allow your products to be browsed using them, but without indexing these pages specifically.

Would this answer your question? If you can give me more specific examples of the category levels or more specific scenario (without giving specific brand or company names if you don't want or can't) I would be able to give you a more specific answer.

Thanks!

[pulcinella2uk]

Thank you for your answer. I'm more looking for what the latest view is on best SEO architecture...

To concentrate it all onto a single dominant page (which has dynamically controlled content via search)...
or spread it widely on lots of specifically optimised pages - with the concern that the SEO 'love' may be spread too thinly.

[Tymen]

Hi Jonathan,

I am also in the Woodbusiness and my set-up is as follows:

Firstly I focus on the main category pages: www.company.com/categoryA etc..

Than I made for every wood specie pages aswell:  company.com/woodA etc.. This generates good traffic from people who are looking for specific products in a specific type of wood

Now I am mainly focussing on product pages for my experience is that how more specific the traffic is the better the conversion rates become:

company.com/category1/woodA-productA-size

My product names all begin with the sort of wood than the product (door, table, etc...) and last the exact measurements.

This works better for me than the subcategories.

Hope it helps. Good luck!

Tymen