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.
Schema markup concerning category pages on an ecommerce site
-
We are adding json+ld data to an ecommerce site and myself and one of the other people working on the site are having a minor disagreement on things. What it comes down to is how to mark up the category page. One of us says it needs to be marked up with as an Itempage, https://schema.org/ItemPage The other says it needs to be marked up as products, with multiple product instances in the schema, https://schema.org/Product
The main sticking point on the Itemlist is that Itemlist is a child of intangible, so there is a feeling that should be used for things like track listings or other arbitrary data.
-
Here's what I came up with: Validator Result.
Note that there's no guarantee this will pass muster with Google since they've said that the Product schema is for use on "a product page that describes a single product"
Here's an official response.
-
Are there any official decisions? I'm also considering adding schema markup to category pages. After running a competitor analysis I noticed this is something that I nor my competitor have in practice. So, I figured this will help my ranking for category pages. However, our product lists are frequently updated. So, would it be best if I went with https://schema.org/ItemPage, and if I went with https://schema.org/Product would I have to update the schema when there are changes in the product list.
-
Which did you end up going with?
-
The load time is not an issue really since it is just text data and only about 20 products. We have a nifty setup actually, we use Algolia to display the products on the category page, we are just making a double call to Algolia before the page render and taking their json array and modifying it into what is needed.
If you run this page through the Structured data testing tool, https://www.ebay.com/b/Fine-Jewelry/4196/bn_2408477 this is what one of us is proposing. See how the tool does not break each into a product node.
At the other time this is a page that the other is proposing, https://www.apple.com/shop/mac/mac-accessories It breaks the products into nodes. (albeit there are errors that can be fixed with the pricing)
I think this better illustrates the issue.
-
Logan when I grow up I want to be like you... jejeje is a joke but as, I see you are very active member of the community and always your answers are clear and concise.
Good for you
-
Hi there,
I haven't heard of using product markup on category pages until reading your question. It's a good idea and while researching I came across this other thread from a couple years ago: https://moz.com/community/q/google-rich-snippets-in-e-commerce-category-pages
My main concern is that most ecomm category pages have a lot of products showing by default, and if you've got a snippet of JSON+LD for each of those, you're going to hurt your page speeds. Just something to be mindful of and monitor if you do decide to go this route.
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
-
Multiple Markups on The Same Page - Best Solution?
Hi there! I have a website that is build in react javascript, and I'm trying to use markup on my pages. They are mostly articles about general topics with common questions (about the topic), and for most articles I would like to use two markups: article markup + FAQ Markup ( for the questions in the article) article markup + how-to markup Can I do this or will Google get confused? Since I have two @type at the same time, for example @type": "FAQPage" and "@type": "Article". How should I think? I'm using https://schema.dev/ right now. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leowa0 -
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_OffLimits0 -
Should HTML be included in the structured data (schema) markup for the main body content?
Lately we have been applying structured data to the main content body of our client's websites. Our lead developer had a good question about HTML however. In JSON-LD, what is the proper way to embed content from a data field that has html markup (i.e. p, ul, li, br, tags) into mainContentOfPage. Should the HTML be stripped our or escaped somehow? I know that apply schema to the main body content is helpful for the Googlebot. However should we keep the HTML? Any recommendations or best practices would be appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Location Pages On Website vs Landing pages
We have been having a terrible time in the local search results for 20 + locations. I have Places set up and all, but we decided to create location pages on our sites for each location - brief description and content optimized for our main service. The path would be something like .com/location/example. One option that has came up in question is to create landing pages / "mini websites" that would probably be location-example.url.com. I believe that the latter option, mini sites for each location, would be a bad idea as those kinds of tactics were once spammy in the past. What are are your thoughts and and resources so I can convince my team on the best practice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KJ-Rodgers0 -
Ecommerce: A product in multiple categories with a canonical to create a ‘cluster’ in one primary category Vs. a single listing at root level with dynamic breadcrumb.
OK – bear with me on this… I am working on some pretty large ecommerce websites (50,000 + products) where it is appropriate for some individual products to be placed within multiple categories / sub-categories. For example, a Red Polo T-shirt could be placed within: Men’s > T-shirts >
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AbsoluteDesign
Men’s > T-shirts > Red T-shirts
Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts
Men’s > Sale > T-shirts
Etc. We’re getting great organic results for our general T-shirt page (for example) by clustering creative content within its structure – Top 10 tips on wearing a t-shirt (obviously not, but you get the idea). My instinct tells me to replicate this with products too. So, of all the location mentioned above, make sure all polo shirts (no matter what colour) have a canonical set within Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts. The presumption is that this will help build the authority of the Polo T-shirts page – this obviously presumes “Polo Shirts” get more search volume than “Red T-shirts”. My presumption why this is the best option is because it is very difficult to manage, particularly with a large inventory. And, from experience, taking the time and being meticulous when it comes to SEO is the only way to achieve success. From an administration point of view, it is a lot easier to have all product URLs at the root level and develop a dynamic breadcrumb trail – so all roads can lead to that one instance of the product. There's No need for canonicals; no need for ecommerce managers to remember which primary category to assign product types to; keeping everything at root level also means there no reason to worry about redirects if product move from sub-category to sub-category etc. What do you think is the best approach? Do 1000s of canonicals and redirect look ‘messy’ to a search engine overtime? Any thoughts and insights greatly received.0 -
Max # of Products / Links per Page on E-Commerce Site
We are getting ready to re-launch our e-commerce site and are trying to decide how many products to list per category page. Some of of our category pages have upwards of 100 products. While I'd love to list ALL the products on the root category page (to reduce hassle for customer, to index more products on a higher PR page), I'm a little worried about having it be too long, and containing too many on-page links. Would love some guidance on: Maximum number of internal links on a page If Google frowns on really long category pages Anything else I should be considering when making this decision Thanks for your input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndrewY2 -
NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?
Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page. For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages? Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
Best way to merge 2 ecommerce sites
Our Client owns two ecommerce websites. Website A sells 20 related brands. Website has improving search rank, but not normally on the second to fourth page of google. Website B was purchased from a competitor. It has 1 brand (also sold on site A). Search results are normally high on the first page of google. Client wants to consider merging the two sites. We are looking at options. Option 1: Do nothing, site B dominates it’s brand, but this will not do anything to boost site A. Option 2: keep both sites running, but put lots of canonical tags on site B pointing to site A Option 3: close down site B and make a lot of 301 redirects to site A Option 4: ??? Any thoughts on this would be great. We want to do this in a way that boosts site A as much as possible without losing sales on the one brand that site B sells.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EugeneF0