What is the best SEO way to categorize products on an ecommerce site
-
What is the best way for SEO to set up categories for an ecommerce site selling beauty products. I have currently built my product categories so that if a person looks under the hydration category they find our body lotion, but also if they look under the body section of products they also will find the same body lotion. Is this a problem for SEO? I think it helps the customer find the product.
-
When it comes to an E-commerce SEO, if you want to get on the first page of Bing or Google, the most important things is that you will need high-quality do-follow and no-follow back links.
Read the moz help section, to learn more about why links are important part of seo.
also when it comes to e-commerce SEO, make sure that all of the product descriptions are very well written, and white hat, so we mean by that is, don't use duplicated text, instead, write the product descriptions in a white hat way.
We worked for a business, which sells log cabins, we got that business on the first page by building quality backlinks
-
.../category-green/some-product.html
.../category-brand/some-product.html
.../category-widget/some-product.html.../some-product.html clean URL should exist and the canonical tag within the top three URLs should be pointing to this clean product URL. The 3 above can be crawled and indexed, but the canonical is assisting Google in understanding which is the correct product URL. A product can rightly exist in multiple categories.
If the platform is such that a clean product URL is not possible (urghh!), then a strategy needs to be developed to choose one of the category/product URLs as the canonical.
My preference though is to have a category structure and all product links coming from those category pages are clean product URLs in the first place, with self referencing canonicals.
-
Thank you for that answer. If I understand you correctly, as long as the category is not in the URL path, then just make sure the category is optimized and the product is in the right category. You are suggesting it should not be a problem to have the same product in two categories using this method? But if the category is in the product URL path, then it would not be good to have a product in multiple categories, right?
-
The way I prefer is to have multiple optimised categories that a product rightly sits in, but the actual product URL is clean with no category in the URL. The page canonical is then self referencing.
If that is not possible and the product URL/s contains the category path, like on Shopify for example, then it is ok to have the product URL canonical set to the clean product URL without category structure. But that only works if that clean URL actually exists (in Shopify it does).
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 - is it site or page
Hi When we're talking about SEO does the search engine only look at the whole site in general or do they look at the individual page when we're talking about SERP? So if you have a keyword "my search term" Does the search engine look at the site first or the page with the term on then rank you or is it the page then the site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
Hiring: Ecommerce SEO Technician (Remote Agency)
Hey, we're looking for an experienced Ecommerce SEO. Someone that can do full site audits, build links, walk clients through implementing Schema and more. Didn't see any category for hiring so if there is a better place for this here on Moz just let me know. Thanks! Ecommerce SEO Technician, Remote, Full-time Whitecap SEO, a young and fast-growing search marketing agency, is looking for an experienced white hat Ecommerce SEO Technician. Our ecommerce clients need their websites to perform exceptionally well in search results to drive new visits and growth. This position requires a strong understanding of ecommerce SEO and the technical aspects of search and web marketing, including SEO best practices for white hat linkbuilding, on-page optimizations, along with fundamental tasks like keyword research and earning off-page signals. Responsibilities Design and conduct white hat outreach campaigns using SEO tools Assist SEO Manager in design and execution of SEO strategies Conduct full site audits Provide specifications for any technical recommendations Accurately estimate new projects and execute those projects within defined scope Communicate with clients how to execute recommended technical changes Stay current on industry trends Skills & Experience 3-5+ years of technical SEO experience. Ideally 2+ years at a digital agency Experience optimizing small to large scale ecommerce websites Experience working with technical SEO tools such as Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Moz, Google Webmaster Tools, etc. Experience on multiple large scale, complex national SEO campaigns Familiar with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, etc. Experience with complex Google Analytics setups: proper tracking and reporting between Google Adwords, Google Analytics and clients’ marketing automation platform Familiar with Schema implementation on ecommerce sites Personal Attributes Excellent organizational skills and the ability to manage competing deadlines Strong written and verbal communication skills Identify, assess, and prioritize a client site’s technical problems Ability to distill complex problems into easily understood, actionable recommendations Critical thinking / analytical problem solver Self-starter that can own a project from inception to completion Working at Whitecap SEO We believe in building success for our clients that will last and take pride in our retention rate. As a small remote team, strong communication is more than just a bullet point on a job listing - it is essential to our success. Everyone on the team has to fill a variety of roles and get things done to deliver the best results for our clients. We offer the chance to work with quality clients and great team members. Salary: $50-65k DOE Apply Wufoo Form
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WhitecapSEO0 -
Ecommerce Duplicate Product Descriptions across 3 websites
Hi, We are an e commerce company that has our own domain but also sell the same products on eBay and Amazon. What is the feeling on the same exact descriptions being used on different platforms? Do they count as duplicate content? Will our domain be punished/penalised as our domain does not have as much authority as EBay or Amazon? We have over 5,000 products with our own hand written product descriptions. We want our website to be the main place/ have priority over the above market places. What's the best suggestion/solution? thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Roy19730 -
HTML5 one page website on-site SEO
Hey guys, If for example, I'm faced with a client who has a website similar to: http://www.symphonyonline.co.uk/ How should I proceed with the on-site optimization? Should I create new pages on the website? Should I create a blog for the site to increase my reach? Please give me your tips on how to proceed with this kind of website. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BruLee0 -
Best-of-the-web content in steep competition, ecommerce site
Hello, I'm helping my client write a long, comprehensive, best-of-the-web piece of content. It's a boring ecommerce niche, but on the informational side the top 10 competitors for the most linked to topic are all big players with huge domain authority. There's not a lot of links in the industry, should I try to top all the big industries through better content (somehow), pictures, illustrations, slideshows with audio, and by being more thorough than these very good competitors? Or should I go for something that's less linked to (maybe 1/5 as much people linking to it) but easier? or both? We're on a short timeline of 3 and 1/2 months until we need traffic and our budget is not huge
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW1 -
Best way to migrate to a new URL structure
Hello everyone, We’re changing our URL structure from something like this: example.com/index.php?language=English To something like this: example.com**/english/**index.php The change is implemented with mod_rewrite so all the old URLs can still work We have hundreds of thousands of pages that are currently indexed with the old URL structure What’s the best way to get Google to rapidly update its index and to maintain as much ranking as possible? 301 redirect all the old URLs to the new equivalent format? If we detect that the URL is in an old format, render the page with a canonical tag pointing to the new equivalent format as well as adding a noindex, nofollow tag? Something else? Thanks for your input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anthematic0 -
Best Product URL For Indexing
My proposed URL: mydomain.com/products/category/subcategory/product detail Puts my products 4 levels deep. Is this too deep to get my products indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | waynekolenchuk0