Migrating to WooCommerce, similar product descriptions but with different urls, cant use variations.
-
Hi!
Ime quite new to SEO and to woocommerce so please help out with this one.. We are migrating from Ithemes Exchange over to WooCommerce and i have come up with some issues.
We are selling adhesives and some of the products have the same name and description, the only thing that seperates them are sometimes the widht, or the length on the roll..
As we have it now we have a separate product page for each widht and length. For example here http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2-100/ and here http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2-150/
The above product pages are for a product called Fentrim 2. its availiable in widhts from 75 to 300mm.. so, its six diffent products pages with more or less the same description.
I get that this will create duplicate content, couse the description on the pages are similar.. We cant use variations in woocommerce, couse this cant be set up to exactly match our shipping needs, so, we need them on separate pages..
Soo, my plan is to set a new product page for Fentrim 2, ex http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2 and then set that url as canonical url for the variations of the product.. Am i on the right track?
Gratefull for any help on this one!
/ Jonas
-
Hi again Dirk,
One last question. What if we got the variations to work with our shipping demands.. Would the absolute best solution to have a single product page, with variations.. And the canonical urls for the variations that woocommerce creates set to the main product page?
In that case i would be able to get better content for the main product page and hopefully it will rank higher and stand stronger against competitors. Also it would limit the duplicate content that we have today?
If i follow this solutions i would need to set up 301 redirects for the old product pages right?
Thanks!
/ Jonas
-
While I don't disagree with the remarks of Donald - I don't think it's feasible to create really uniques descriptions for each type of product - especially when it's only the dimension which is changing (like the length you mention).
I think you mainly have to options:
-
keep the duplicate content (which is not necessarily a cause for punishment: check https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en), especially if these pages currently are generating traffic & from technical perspective it's not feasible to use one page where you can select the changing dimensions
-
use canonicals to a type of category page - which contains the general description with links to the products with different dimension
2nd would be my preferred solution - but again if not feasible I would just live with the semi duplicated content (we have some sites in this situation which are just doing fine). It's maybe a risk - but I guess it's not really a big one. You're not the only one in this situation - e-commerce sites selling common products like batteries or replacement parts are in the same situation as you. Many of them do just fine keeping the "duplicate" content.
Dirk
-
-
Hi Knubbz,
I would recommend creating different products. Then hand write more descriptive descriptions for each adhesive product. Right now the descriptions might be the same but if you do this they will be different and google will reward you. Content is king even in the eccomerce world. Set your products apart from competitors and the ones on the website by making them each unique.
-
Hi Dirk,
Thanks for the response.
Your answer raised some thoughts.
The plan was to have a new product as the landing page and the page where I would focus the content on..
It could be divided in to a category but our layout doesn't give any good room for the product content..
And, we also rank for all of the versions of the product. As I described, each fentrim adhesive comes in different widths, and also versions that named IS 20, 20, see the attached screenshot for a Google search for fentrim at SE Google.
Any ideas?
-
Sound like a good idea to avoid the duplicate content. Does it also imply that your visitors are going to land on a page http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2 where they can't order the product? Or would that page be like a category page -listing all the different variations (which would probably make more sense)?
Dirk
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
-
Product instant answers?
Hi Guys, I noticed today that Google was serving a VERY different organic result for a product level search. The query was "giro aspect". Included is a screenshot of the SERP. Anyone know about these? Is there anything we need to do to get this (i.e certain schema.org markup)? Any insights appreciated,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | evoNick
Will fPzGb06.jpg0 -
A/B Testing - Should I add product descriptions on my category landing pages as well as on product pages and if so . how to do this to avoid duplicate content
Hi All, I recently relaunched a new design on my tool hire eCommerce website and now display my products in grid form on my category landing pages as opposed to just a list view which we previously had on the old design. My bounce rates are alot higher than they use to be and my gut instinct is telling me maybe this is wrong . I want to do some a/b testing using a list view. My question is , previously in our list views we just showed the images and pricing and had on page content on the bottom of the page. The user would click on the product image and they would then we taken to the product page which has the product description , t&c, etc etc.. If I was to do this in my a/b testing but change it so we also displayed the product descriptions as well on the category landing pages . Is there a special way to do this as in effect, we would have duplicate content as the product descriptions are also on the product page?. Does anyone have any thoughts on this as to whether its a No No from an SEO point of view ?... Heres a short url link to one of my category pages - http://goo.gl/QJv5gw Historically we use to rank well for the category landing pages and not for the product pages.Our Rankings are down , bounce rates are higher so I am trying to sort both. We have good content on pages etc. Any advice greatly appreciated as always thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Search Refinement URLs
My site is using search refinement and I am concerned about the URL adding additional characters when it's refined. My current URL is: http://www.autopartscheaper.com/Air-Conditioning-Heater-Parts-s/10280.htm and when someone chooses their specific year, make, and model then it changes to: http://www.autopartscheaper.com/Air-Conditioning-Heater-Parts-s/10280.htm?searching=Y&Cat=10280&RefineBy_7371=7708. Will this negatively affect SEO for this URL? Will the URL be counted twice? Any help would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Best url structure
I am making a new site for a company that services many cities. I was thinking a url structure like this, website.com/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3/cityname1-cityname2-cityname3-cityname4-cityname5. Will this be the best approach to optimize the site for the keyword plus 5 different cities ? as long as I keep the total url characters under the SeoMoz reccomended 115 characters ? Or would it be better to build separate pages for each city, trying to reword the main services to try to avoid dulpicate content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jlane90 -
Do I need to use canonicals if I will be using 301's?
I just took a job about three months and one of the first things I wanted to do was restructure the site. The current structure is solution based but I am moving it toward a product focus. The problem I'm having is the CMS I'm using isn't the greatest (and yes I've brought this up to my CMS provider). It creates multiple URL's for the same page. For example, these two urls are the same page: (note: these aren't the actual urls, I just made them up for demonstration purposes) http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Omnipress
http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/bossman.cmsx (I know this is terrible, and once our contract is up we'll be looking at a different provider) So clearly I need to set up canonical tags for the last two pages that look like this: http://www.omnipress.com/boss-man" /> With the new site restructure, do I need to put a canonical tag on the second page to tell the search engine that it's the same as the first, since I'll be changing the category it's in? For Example: http://www.website.com/home/meet-us/team-leaders/boss-man/ will become http://www.website.com/home/MEET-OUR-TEAM/team-leaders/boss-man My overall question is, do I need to spend the time to run through our entire site and do canonical tags AND 301 redirects to the new page, or can I just simply redirect both of them to the new page? I hope this makes sense. Your help is greatly appreciated!!0 -
Image ALT Descriptions
Due to the way our system is and the way we want to do something. We have to make the description for each image in the ALT. Now this is not just a few words but is actually a few sentences. Is there going to be any negative disadvantage to doing it this way? The positives I see is that it will help with accessibility and atleast the bots will be able to tell what the item is about. The negatives is that maybe this description could be better used elsewhere?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | websitesaleslab0 -
Duplicate content via dynamic URLs where difference is only parameter order?
I have a question about the order of parameters in an URL versus duplicate content issues. The URLs would be identical if the parameter order was the same. E.g.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anthematic
www.example.com/page.php?color=red&size=large&gender=male versus
www.example.com/page.php?gender=male&size=large&color=red How smart is Google at consolidating these, and do these consolidated pages incur any penalty (is their combined “weight” equal to their individual selves)? Does Google really see these two pages as DISTINCT, or does it recognize that they are the same because they have the exact same parameters? Is this worth fixing in or does it have a trivial impact? If we have to fix it and can't change our CMS, should we set a preferred, canonical order for these URLs or 301 redirect from one version to the other? Thanks a million!0 -
Canonical URL redirect to different domain - SEO benefits?
Hello Folks, We are having a SEO situation here, and hope your support will help us figure out that. Let's say there are two different domains www.subdomian.domianA.com and www.domainB.com. subdomain.domainA is what we want to promote and drive SEO traffic. But all our content lies in domainB. So one of the thoughts we had is to duplicate the domainB's content on subdomian.domainA and have a canonical URL redirect implemented. Questions: Will subdomain.domainA.com get indexed in search engines for the content in domainB by canonical redirect? Do we get the SEO benefits? So is there any other better way to attain this objective? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NortonSupportSEO0