Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    2
    2
    902
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Inevo
      Inevo last edited by

      Hi, everybody

      In the Moz ranking tool for one of our client's (the client sells sport equipment) account, there is a trend where more and more of their landing pages are product pages instead of category pages. The optimal landing page for the term "sleeping bag" is of course the sleeping bag category page, but Google is sending them to a product page for a specific sleeping bag..

      What could be the critical factors that makes the product page more relevant than the category page as the landing page?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EricaMcGillivray
        EricaMcGillivray last edited by

        Usually, the reason is because category pages tend to be light on content and thus, not as indexable. And sometimes category pages are noindex due to this. Google is likely looking at your product page and finding it more relevant, based on content, than the category page for people who are looking for "sleeping bags."

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        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.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • JH_OffLimits

          Home Page Disappears From Google - But Rest of Site Still Ranked

          As title suggests we are running into a serious issue of the home page disapearing from Google search results whilst the rest of the site still remains. We search for it naturally cannot find a trace, then use a "site:" command in Google and still the home page does not come up. We go into web masters and inspect the home page and even Google states that the page is indexable. We then run the "Request Indexing" and the site comes back on Google. This is having a damaging affect and we would like to understand why this issue is happening. Please note this is not happening on just one of our sites but has happened to three which are all located on the same server. One of our brand which has the issue is: www.henweekends.co.uk

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JH_OffLimits
          0
        • chelseaskirtinguk

          My product category pages are not being indexed on google can someone help?

          My website has been indexed on google and all of its pages can be found on google except for the product category pages - which are where we want our traffic heading to, so this is a big problem for us. Our website is www.skirtinguk.com And an example of a page that isn't being indexed is https://www.skirtinguk.com/product-category/mdf-skirting-board/

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chelseaskirtinguk
          0
        • gorubbishgo

          How to rank my website in Google UK?

          Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least -  I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo
          0
        • ieplnupur

          Is there any effect on ranking if i disable right click on page??

          Hello , I have site, in which client needs right click on All his pages, his traffic is very Good, But worried, if right click hurts its traffic, ?? any expert can help ?? Thx in Advance

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ieplnupur
          0
        • fabioricotta-84038

          How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?

          Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post  about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabioricotta-84038
          0
        • AWCthreads

          Google and Product Description Tabs

          How does Google process a product page with description tabs?  For example, lets say the product page has a tab for Overview, Specifications, What's In the Box and so on. Wouldn't that content be better served in one main product description tab with the tab names used as (htags) or highlighted paragraph separators? Or, does all that content get crawled as a single page regardless of the tabs?

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads
          0
        • Endora

          Why am I not ranking in Google, but I am in Yahoo and Bing?

          The website in question is: www.stbarthexclusives.com Our keywords are currently ranking for both Bing and Yahoo, but we're not appearing anywhere on Google. The website is being crawled successfully, but we still don't have any results. I hoping somebody can point me in the general right direction to fix/correct this problem. Additionally, there's a decent amount of "rel=canonical tags" on the website. If that helps your evaluation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Endora
          0
        • Marketing.SCG

          Magento: URLs for Products in Multiple Categories

          I am working in Magento to build out a large e-commerce site with several thousand products. It's a great platform, but I have run into the issue of what it does to URLs when you put a product into multiple categories. Basically, "a book" in two categories would make two URLs for one product: 1) /books/a-book 2) author-name/a-book So, I need to come up with a solution for this. It seems I have two options: Found this from a Magento SEO article: 'Magento gives you the ability to add the name of categories to path for product URL's. Because Magento doesn't support this functionality very well - it creates duplicate content issues - it is a very good idea to disable this. To do this, go to System => Configuration => Catalog => Search Engine Optimization and set "Use categories path for product URL's to "no".' This would solve the issues and be a quick fix, but I think it's a double edged sword, because then we lose the SEO value of our well named categories being in the URL. Use Canonical tags. To be fair, I'm not even sure this is possible. Even though it is creating different URLs and, thus, poses a risk of "duplicate content" being crawled, there really is only one page on the admin side. So, I can't go to all of the "duplicate" pages and put a canonical tag, because those duplicate pages don't really exist on the back-end. Does that make sense? After typing this out, it seems like the best thing to do probably will be to just turn off categories in the URL from the admin side. However, I'd still love any input from the community on this. Thanks!

          Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marketing.SCG
          0

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        • Digital Marketers
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.