Migrating to WooCommerce, similar product descriptions but with different urls, cant use variations.

[knubbz]

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

[knubbz]

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

[DirkC]

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

[donsilvernail]

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.

[knubbz]

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?

fnnrzJz

[DirkC]

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