Ecommerce store on subdomain - danger of keyword cannibalization?
-
Hi all,
Scenario: Ecommerce website selling a food product has their store on a subdomain (store.website.com). A GOOD chunk of the URLs - primarily parameters - are blocked in Robots.txt. When I search for the products, the main domain ranks almost exclusively, while the store only ranks on deeper SERPs (several pages deep).
In the end, only one variation of the product is listed on the main domain (ex: Original Flavor 1oz 24 count), while the store itself obviously has all of them (most of which are blocked by Robots.txt).
Can anyone shed a little bit of insight into best practices here? The platform for the store is Shopify if that helps. My suggestion at this point is to recommend they all crawling in the subdomain Robots.txt and canonicalize the parameter pages.
As for keywords, my main concern is cannibalization, or rather forcing visitors to take extra steps to get to the store on the subdomain because hardly any of the subdomain pages rank. In a perfect world, they'd have everything on their main domain and no silly subdomain.
Thanks!
-
I posted a bit of a Reddit rant here under my personal SEO alias of "studiumcirclus":
(click "View Entire Discussion")
Mainly these things vex me about the platform:
"In basic terms, Shopify is limited by its vision. They want to make sites easy to design for the average-joe, which means they have to spend most of their platform dev time on the back-end of the system and not the front-end of the sites which it produces
_ If they're always bogged down making extra tick-boxes to change things in the back-end, how can they be keeping up with cutting edge SEO? With WordPress you have a much larger dev community making add-ons, many of them completely free and still very effective. Because everyone is on WP, when new Google features, directives or initiatives come out they are quickly embraced (putting all sites on WP one step ahead)_
_ With smaller dev communities, platforms like Shopify or Magento lag behind. Why do people always expect that 'average' will rank 'well'? Ahead of the curve ranks well, average ranks averagely_
_ Also Shopify has some nasty Page-Speed issues which they won't acknowledge and they just argue about instead of fixing things. It's just not good for SEO_"
Other "Shopify is bad" evidence:
https://moz.com/community/q/main-menu-duplication#reply_391855 - just contains some of my thoughts on why Shopify isn't that good
https://moz.com/community/q/site-crawl-status-code-430 - a relatively recent problem someone had with their Shopify site, scroll down to see my reply
https://moz.com/community/q/duplicate-content-in-shopify-subsequent-pages-in-collections - someone else having tech issues with their Shopify site. While my answer was probably right, they probably couldn't implement the fixes
-
This was incredibly helpful. Right now their funnel starts on the store (adding product to cart), but there's definitely a benefit to it starting on the main domain to better track how the channels perform and overall user behavior.
-
In summary - firstly echo effectdigital on Shopify. It is an interesting platform sold very well by Shopify zealots - but we have had to bend too many times to Shopify platform limitations to believe it is the right answer for most. It is awesome if your a bikini start-up with no CRM or ERP - however the moment it comes to a decent integration - it often gets ugly quickly.
On to your query - the shortened version to the answer is no-one knows. Why? because the algorithm treats subdomains differently for different sites. https://moz.com/blog/interview-searchlove There is a good piece on subdomains v subfolders in this WBF. In summary a good discussion on subdomains.
The click through to the subdomain should be a normal step, ie so assuming on the subdomain your landing on the relevant contextual page within the funnel to transact. That is normal for some back ends. You are correct ideally in my view all on the root domain.
Overall if the subdomain pages are critical and you want to rank, then need to treat subdomain for SEO as a separate site. However, if the subdomain is just the end part of the sales funnel.. then may not need to rank..
Hope that is helpful.
Regards
-
One reason we got out of shopify. Gets complicated quickly. There was a brilliant WBF on subdomains about 2 months ago - by the british dude from distilled who pops up from time to time. Will try and find it if get time, but would check that out as a starting point.
-
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the best way to present to them all the pertinent information regarding how terrible Shopify is. The way they use Collections then block any sort of parameters in their unalterable Robots.txt file is insane.
-
That sounds like a hell of a mess. Instead of tying your name to one proposed implementation and saying "yes, this IS the way" - I'd get the complexity of the issue across to the client / boss
I'd then present your idea and say "I want to test this, but if results suffer we will need to revert the changes". I think that with such a complex architectural nightmare (on a HORRIBLE platform like Shopify, which is just awful for SEO) - it would be extremely foolish to charge off into the night without making the risks clear
The best practice is really to not have built such a terrible site to begin with. In making things better, there may be growing pains. There may be NO options which would result in 100% growth and 0% losses
My recommendation would be to continue blocking Google's access to the original, default product variations (as those are already happily ranking on the main site. Don't fix what ain't broken). I might allow Google to crawl the sub-variations which are inaccessible from the main site. I might alter the main site's UX to include links to the sub-variants on the 'shop.' subdomain
In the end though, it's a very tangled web they have spun
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
-
Subfolder cannibalization
Hello, I looked through the forum but couldn't find an answer so here is my question: A client have 2 subfolders that are selling the same things for example Furnitures, Office Furniture, Bedroom Furniture, etc. The website looks like this : www.website.com/subfolder1/ www.website.com/subfolder2/ But it's like 2 diferents brand, just that it sells the same kind of product. The company wants to put evereything in subfolder1 and stop the subfolder2, which mean stop the second brand. But the thing is that right now the subfolder2 have better positions in SEO than subfolder1 for most of the Keywords. How could I make all the internet traffic goes from the subfolder2 to the subfolder1 ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sodimaccl
A 301 redirection could do the trick ? In addition of improving the SEO (Title, H1, Meta, etc) of the subfolder1 ? Thanks for your help.0 -
Keyword not ranking but keyword within a phrase is?
Hi Guys, Google is not indexing the keyword ‘e liquid’ for www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid and it's driving me insane. I cannot understand why, can anyone please shed any light! -On page we have used variations e liquid, e-liquid, eliquid. -The e-liquid product pages are canonicaled to www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid. -3 other pages regarding e liquid were 301 redirected to the page passing good authority. I did this as I believed these pages conflicted as they seemed to target e-liquid. -‘e-liquid’ is being used as an anchor throughout the website pointing to www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid. -The ‘e liquid’ page has generally good authority PA 22, DA26. -The website has good anchor text linking to the site, all relative and e liquid related, along with brand links. Currently the keyword ‘e liquid’ brings up the home page www.cloudstix.com ranked 100+. What’s strange is the other terms relating to 'e liquid' bring up www.cloudstix.com/e-liquid for example: ‘e liquid uk’ ‘the best e liquid’ and ‘e liquid cloudstix’. Any ideas on what the problem may be. Would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks guys! Liam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | One2OneDigital0 -
Google Is Indexing The Wrong Page For My Keyword
For a long time (almost 3 mounth) google indexing the wrong page for my main keyword.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tiedemann_Anselm
The problem is that each time google indexed another page each time for a period of 4-7 days, Sometimes i see the home page, sometimes a category page and sometimes a product page.
It seems though Google has not yet decided what his favorite / better page for this keyword. This is the pages google index: (In most cases you can find the site on the second or third page) Main Page: http://bit.ly/19fOqDh Category Page: http://bit.ly/1ebpiRn Another Category: http://bit.ly/K3MZl4 Product Page: http://bit.ly/1c73B1s All links I get to the website are natural links, therefore in most cases the anchor we got is the website name. In addition I have many links I get from bloggers that asked to do a review on one of my products, I'm very careful about that and so I'm always checking the blogger and their website only if it is something good, I allowed it. also i never ask for a link back (must of the time i receive without asking), and as I said, most of their links are anchor with my website name. Here some example of links that i received from bloggers: http://bit.ly/1hF0pQb http://bit.ly/1a8ogT1 http://bit.ly/1bqqRr8 http://bit.ly/1c5QeC7 http://bit.ly/1gXgzXJ Please Can I get a recommendation what should you do?
Should I try to change the anchor of the link?
Do I need to not allow bloggers to make a review on my products? I'd love to hear what you recommend,
Thanks for the help0 -
Turning off a subdomain
Hi! I'm currently working with http://www.muchbetteradventures.com/. They have a previous version of the site, http://v1.muchbetteradventures.com, as sub domain on their site. I've noticed a whole bunch of indexing issues which I think are caused by this. The v1 site has several thousand pages and ranks organically for a number of terms, but the pages are not relevant for the business at this time. The main site has just over 100 pages. More than 28,400 urls are currently indexed. We are considering turning off the v1 site and noindexing it. There are no real backlinks to it. The only worry is that by removing it, it will be seen as a massive drop in content. Rankings for the main site are currently quite poor, despite good content, a decent link profile and high domain authority. Any thoughts would be much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
Google drop down - keyword gone, why?
Hi guys, i received traffic off a yearly based term, this year for '2013' i noticed it is nowhere near what the yearly term was for the year before. I believe that Google has stopped the yearly term appearing in a drop-down menu from a big volume related term, my question is how do they determine what goes in the drop down menu for related/relevant searches?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Meta Keywords: Should we use them or not?
I am working through our site and see that meta keywords are being used heavily and unnecessarily. Each of our info pages will have 2 or 3 keyword phrases built into them. Should we just duplicate the keyword phrases into the meta keyword field, should put in additional keywords beyond or not use it at all? Thoughts and opinions appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus1 -
Can I rank for 3 keyword phrases using one long tial Keyword Phrase?
I am new to seo and still getting my head around long tail searches. If i use a phrase such as "luxury towels uk", Can i also rank on the same page for "luxury towels" and "towels uk"? Tui means ranking for 3 phrases using 1 long tail
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
How To Best Close An eCommerce Site?
We're closing down one of our eCommerce sites. What is the best approach to do this? The site has a modest link profile (a young site). It does have a run of site link to the parent site. It also has a couple hundred email subscribers and established accounts. Is there a gradual way to do this? How do I treat the subscribers and account holders? The impact won't be great, but I want to minimize collateral damage as much as possible. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AWCthreads0