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.
WooCommerce category naming conventions
-
I am managing a woocommerce store selling prescription glasses/spectacles.
We have a lot of categories with similar names and I want to adopt the best possible naming convention to get the best from search.
So we have a number of similar categories for both Men's and women's glasses. Currently they are named as follows:
Women's Glasses-Women's Rimless Glasses
-Women's Semi Rimless Glasses
-Women's Plastic Glasses
-Women's Metal Glasses
-Women's Retro GlassesCurrently, this results in the following URL structure for sub categories:
https://www.glassesonspec.co.uk/product-category/womens-glasses-2/womens-rimless-glasses/
(For some reason WooCommerce is adding -2 to the end of the primary category name, it will not let me change it for some reason, this is the subject of a further investigation!)
So first question, is there too much duplication of the word glasses on the sub items? for example, should they read;
Women's Glasses
-Rimless
-Semi Rimless
-Plastic
-Metal
-RetroHence giving this URL structure:
https://www.glassesonspec.co.uk/product-category/womens-glasses-2/rimless/
OR, should we change the top level category name to just Women's and let the sub categories complete the picture?:
Women's
-Rimless Glasses
-Semi Rimless Glasses
-Plastic Glasses
-Metal Glasses
-Retro GlassesGiving this example URL structure:
https://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxx.co.uk/product-category/womens/rimless-glasses/
This would solve my hyphenation problem, however my fear is the top level category on it's own is not descriptive enough when viewed as stand alone:
https://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxx.co.uk/product-category/womens/
The second part of my question relates to how to deal with the change in URL structure. I am using Yoast Premium, so will that pick up the changes and automatically redirect to the new one as it does when done manually? Or will I need to take a different approach using HTACCESS commands?
I hope the above makes sense,
Many thanks,
Bob
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your response and suggestions. I think I've found a solution to all of the issues I'm currently experiencing!
https://www.perfectseourl.com/
This should fix the -2 problem, as I can now dispense with the "product-category" slug completely and also follow your suggestion of going with the "womens" category name etc.
Many thanks!
-
The reason for the -2 added to the category permalink is because you have a duplicate name. Even if this category is in the trash it will cause the -2 to be added if a new category is made. Delete any duplicate names in the trash to fix this.
I would recommend using the shorter category "womens" and if possible shorten the "product-category" slug so that your keywords have a chance to appear in bold the search listing preview.
Usually your product category links and breadcrumbs will update automatically when the permalink is changed. If you have placed manual links to these categories you may want to consider adding 301 redirects to the updated URLs.
Hope this helps. Best of luck with your updates.
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
-
SEO advice on ecommerce url structure where categories contain "/c/"
Hi! We use Hybris as plattform and I would like input on which url to choose. We must keep "/c/" before the actual category. c stands for category. I.e. this current url format will be shortened and cleaned:
Technical SEO | | hampgunn
https://www.granngarden.se/Sortiment/Husdjur/Hund/Hundfoder-%26-Hundmat/c/hundfoder To either: a.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/hundfoder/c/hundfoder b.
https://www.granngarden.se/husdjur/hund/c/hundfoder (hundfoder means dogfood) The question is whether we should keep the duplicated category name (hundfoder) before the "/c/" or not. Will there be SEO disadvantages by removing the duplicate "hundfoder" before the "/c/"? I prefer the shorter version ofc, but do not want to jeopardize any SEO rankings or send confusing signals to search engines or customers due to the "/c/" breaking up the url breadcrumb. What do you guys say and prefer from the above alternatives? Thanks /Hampus0 -
How to fix: Attribute name not allowed on element meta at this point.
Hello, HTML validator brings "Attribute name not allowed on element meta at this point" for all my meta tags. Yet, as I understand, it is essential to keep meta-description for SEO, for example. I read a couple of articles on how to fix that and one of them suggests considering HTML5 custom data attribute instead of name: Do you think I should try to validate my page? And instead of ? I will appreciate your advise very much!
Technical SEO | | kirupa0 -
Static or dynamic category pages for seo
Hi, I'm developing an accommodation site with a limited number of properties in 8 categories. I had been looking at making the properties blog posts and then using category function to show lists but its going to require a lot of customisation and I have seo concerns about the dynamic content as the category page is crucial. As I don't have a lot to add and listings will remain the same my latest thought was to create all as pages. However if I create a page with a list of 12 properties on a category page is there anyway of adding some sorting criteria to that page (would be 7 options - swimming pool, near beach, on site creche, budget, mid-range, luxury) Thanks for any tips Neil
Technical SEO | | neilhenderson0 -
Should we remove category paths for better SEO?
We're looking to build some serious content and capitalise on long-tail keyword traffic for our sub-category pages, example for targeted keyword "designer dining tables". Example of current link: www.website.com/designer-furniture/designer-dining-tables.html Would removing the category paths help? Example result - www.website.com/designer-dining-tables More user friendly URLs and better for SEO would you suggest? The only problem is, if we removed the paths would this have a hit on our traffic? Any advice would be much appreciated. We are using Magento platform.
Technical SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Should I noindex my blog's tag, category, and author pages
Hi there, Is it a good idea to no index tag, category, and author pages on blogs? The tag pages sometimes have duplicate content. And the category and author pages aren't really optimized for any search term. Just curious what others think. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Rignite0 -
How to Delete the slug /category/ from wordpress category pages
Hi all, I would like to ask you what's the better way to eliminate the slug /category/ form the wordpress category pages. I need to delete the slug /category/ to make the url seo frendly. The problem is that my site is an old site with the page indexed by Google for a long time. Thanks for your advice.
Technical SEO | | salvyy0 -
Keywords in file names vs folder names
We understand the value of a keyword phrase included in the URL. Is there more value to having that phrase in the folder name of the URL or the file name or does it matter? Example: http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design.php or http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design/ Which is best? Thanks, Wick Smith
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0 -
How to 301 multiple domain names to a single domain
Hey, I tried to find and answer to this seemingly simple question, but no luck. So, I have one domain name with a website attached to it. I also registered all the other domain names that are similar to it or have different extensions - I want to redirect all the other domain names to my one main domain name without getting penalised by the big G. It looks like this: www.mainsite.com - this is my main domain I also have www.mainsite.com.au, www.mainsite.org, and www.mainsite.org.au which I all want to just redirect to www.mainsite.com I have been told that the best way to do this is a 301 redirect, but to do that you need to make a CNAME for all the other domains that points to www.mainsite.com. My problem is that I cannot seem to create a CNAME record for http://mainsite.com - I have it working for http://www.mainsite.com but not the non www record. What should I be doing differently? Is it just my DNS provider is useless? Thanks, Anthony
Technical SEO | | Grenadi0