Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Even though you include a lengthy disclaimer, even hinting to someone new at SEO that you could/should noindex a category page on an eCommerce site is a little dangerous. Still, great answer Tom.

Mohit,

Tom's advice will help you determine which pages are worth redirecting and which should just go to a 404 page (which should be customized instead of the browser/host default, and should also return a 404 response code in the http header!). My guess is that pages with links only from scraper sites aren't going to pass the tests laid out by Tom and thus would just go to a 404 page. However, any that have decent external links would fit the criteria and would be candidates for a 301 redirect.

Hello Michelle,

Would you mind sharing some examples? We're going to need more information in order to provide you with the best answer.

Regards,

Everett

Hello Kevin,

Just by asking this question you exhibit way more intuitive knowledge than many seasoned SEOs out there.

First you need to think about the intent of the searcher. Do they want to read about Biggie's influence on hip hop, or do they want to buy a pair of Biggie Smalls Versace sunglasses? Being an ecommerce site, I'd go with the latter.

Second, you need to think about scaleability. It is great to customize every title tag and meta description completely, but that isn't always scaleable across several thousand products.

Some other tips:

I always liked adding in offers and unique selling propositions on key products. The offers might be temporary and subject to change, which is why you need to keep it scaleable. The last thing you want is an angry shopper who saw an offer in the SERPs that is no longer available on the site. This might only be your top 10-50 products out of thousands, but typically those represent the majority share of revenue on most ecommerce sites anyway. Some examples:

Buy Biggie Smalls Versace Sunglasses - Free Shipping from Company!

Biggie Smalls Versace Sunglasses: Save 10% with Company!

Authentic Biggie Smalls Sunglasses from Versace - Save at Website.com!

You get the point. These titles are obviously written for shoppers. They are at the point of the buying cycle where they know exactly what they want and are just looking for a good deal from a trusted, reliable store.

If you're targeting someone earlier in the buying cycle who wants Versace sun glasses but do not yet know which kind, they should end up on a category page.

If you're targeting a Biggie Smalls fan who doesn't even know they "want" a pair of sunglasses yet, well that's an entirely different type of landing page and marketing activity. Conversion rates from the SERPs for that target market would be dismally low on a product detail page. An article about Biggie Smalls would be more appropriate. Something specifically dealing with the phenomenon of merchandising around the name of a deceased artist might be particularly appealing and link-worthy.

Good luck!

Hello Sudhir,

Those two pages would not be seen as duplicates. Google is very capable of separating the template from the content.

On a side note, you should look into getting the name of the page/game into the breadcrumb, though it doesn't have to be linked like the previous two pages in the path. For example:

You are here: Home --> Common --> Find Easter Eggs

Allowing visitors to review and rate the games would provide useful, keyword-rich, natural content on an otherwise content-sparse page. Once reviews/ratings are implemented you could also use Schema.org markup to enhance your search engine results by showing star ratings next to each game.

Good luck!

PS: I found this today, which seems to be a pretty good rundown of the pros and cons of various pagination strategies: http://www.ayima.com/seo-knowledge/conquering-pagination-guide.html . Keep in mind that it doesn't take into account how limited Joomla is in this area.

Patrick can you post the site? If you don't feel comfortable doing that you can send it to me in a private message. Please include the specific reviews page/section you mention. I'd like to have a look at how pagination is being handled, whether any rel canonical tags are being used, etc...

Without seeing the site I think the best advice I can give is sort of general:

• Have the page number included in the title tag and meta description if possible (e.g. Page # - TITLE) as Mike Davis recommends below. This can probably be accomplished with the following extension ( http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-management/seo-a-metadata/title-management/14747 ) though I have not had to use that specific extension personally.

• Implement rel next/prev if possible, though I have not seen any good extensions to accomplish this. The unique titles and descriptions should be fine for now if you can't implement rel next/prev.

• Ignore that SEOMoz warning next time if you have implemented either of the above solutions.

Good luck!

Hello Tim,

Assuming you are already using Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs, try this:

http://www.pathfindertech.net/joomla-1-5-and-link-rel-canonical-seo/

I had a look at the http://callprobest.com site mentioned as an example in that post, including the www. version, and it seems to be functioning correctly. They use the same version of Joomla you're using.

You may also need to use this SEF extension too if you haven't already:

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-management/sef/10134

Good luck!

If you don't mind, stop by and let us all know how this works for you. I'm curious myself.

While I can't endorse the tactic, SEOs have been doing it for many years on various "parasite" domains, as well as for laundering sub-par links through another site that links to them.

On the other hand, I would put my efforts toward improving my reputation on Amazon if I had the choice (though maybe you're doing both). What would help way more than sub-par external links would be more internal links from other Amazon.com pages to your product page, seller page, etc... You get those by having a good reputation, getting good reviews, competitive prices, etc...

Good luck!

You still have these links out there. The pages linking to you are still indexed. And they seem to be cloaking for Google...

http://thesavedquarter.com/2011/03/franklin-goose-you-suck/
The URL above links to you with the text "propecia 5mg" and links to this URL:
http://richclubgirl.com/tag/prada/

When you or I visit that URL (thesavedquarter...) we will probably see a blank, white page. However, when Google visits the page they see content, including that spammy link to your site. You can tell this in two ways:

1. Visit Google's cache of the page, which is here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IYE5SpXxEOwJ:thesavedquarter.com/2011/03/franklin-goose-you-suck/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

2. Use a tool that allows you to switch your user agent (Webmaster Tools allows you to do this too, but I use a Firefox plugin) so that you can browse the web as Googlebot, in which case you will see what Google sees on that page, which is the content and a spammy link to your website in the right sidebar.

The reason this would be affected newer pages, as someone else mentioned in the other thread, is because your newer posts do not have the authority / trust of the older ones and are thus more easily affected by filters and penalties from Google.

Follow Oleg's advice regarding the backlink profile cleanup and make sure your site is very secure. As I mentioned in the other thread, use the disavow link tool, report the cloaking pages to Google as spam, and as they come out of the index hopefully the situation will improve. A reinclusion request after the links are cleaned up may help, but my guess is this is algorithmic so they may tell you that you don't have a penalty. In either case, cleaning up those links from the other sites should help. Good luck!

Sandip it sounds like you are providing advice for an affiliate. JB85 is asking about affiliate links because he is a merchant.

JB85 are you going to go through an affiliate network like Commission Junction, Shareasale, Linkshare, Google Affiliate Network.... or are you going to have the links go directly to your site via some internal affiliate management system or script?

If you go through a major network you don't have to worry about it. The links go through the network's URL first and do not pass pagerank.

If you have the links go directly to your site you should not try to get pagerank through them. Add a rel nofollow tag to the text you provide affilaites, and state that the links must be nofollowed in your terms. It may seem like a good idea to use "naked links" but it would be short-term gain and long-term loss for any eCommerce business hoping to generate organic search revenue in the coming years.

Good luck!

Joe I agree with Shane that it is very possible to keep rankings after changing domains, but that is if everything else stays the same. You are moving to a totally new platform so not much is going to stay the same. I would not expect rankings to stay the same after the switch. Still, if you must do it, make sure all of the 301 redirects are in place and working correctly. Do the best you can with what you have to work with.

I'd advise against switching if most of their revenue comes from Google organic search. However, some retailers actually find Amazon to be their leading channel (over search, even) so it all depends on what their business goals are.

Good luck!

Hello Chris,

Could you provide some detailed screenshots (with markup) of what you are seeing? I did see the "Refresh Cartridges - Torquay" prices on the link but couldn't find Refresh Cartridges as a store when viewing the comparison list. Perhaps this has something to do with my location, or perhaps the items I was looking for are no longer active in the feed. Either way, I think in this situation screenshots would help.

Regards,

Everett

Antonio,

I came into this question a little late so I'm not sure how it was back when you asked it, but right now the problem I see is that the page that does exist ( http://www.comparativadebancos.com/mejores-depositos-bancarios-de-marzo-de-2011/ ) has a rel canonical tag pointing to the page that doesn't exist ( http://www.comparativadebancos.com/depositos/marzo/ ), which returns a 404 response code.

I think right now the best thing you can do would be to change the rel canonical tag on /mejores-depositos-bancarios-de-marzo-de-2011/ to be http://www.comparativadebancos.com/mejores-depositos-bancarios-de-marzo-de-2011/ .