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I Have an ecommerce site hosted on volusion and they make the structure /category/product (Specifically www.example.com/shortnameurl/productcode"). I figure with 10000+ sites they have found that this structure is best. They want the best results for their clients so they retain & gain new busines.

I recently tried to duplicate(ish) the product name like /black-luxium-camera/luxiumfz200 ... and google killed me.

My suggestion, stick with /categoryORbrand/product,  NOT .com/product/   as there is more opportunity to stand out when people search.

Hi,

I too have a volusion site, and have had my ups and downs with SEO. I was not as prepared with 301s when i switched over so i took a hit, but after 3 months went back to normal. I would say that volusion is great for seo, no need to purchase an additional package.

I recently took a gamble and gave all of my products unique URLs via unique "product name short" and i dropped 50% of my traffic, bad idea. After 8 weeks of lower traffic i am now going back to having the same product name short for all produtcs in a subcategory. That was my mistake not volusion.

I find that SEOMOZ + Volusion import/export is a pretty good combo to make sure that my site has all relevant info and is updated quickly.

Again, thank you for your feedback!

I may have changed a few of the product codes which should create a 404, but i had a catch all redirect so now they are soft 404. I only have 29 total, or 20 more than when i started. I will make sure to fix, even if this is not the cause.

With 1200 pages, and 600 products I am confident that +20 soft 404's is causing 25% week over week traffic, hurting me from 2K a week to 1K a week.

See screenshot from webmaster tools

http://imgur.com/90vIh

I am so puzzled by this.

I think that I have just shocked the engines. I have done it before, hurt for 6 weeks, then back to normal, hopefully better (fingers crossed).

Great question! Sorry i forgot to mention,  I have been on volusion for a while, so all 301R is managed automatically.

When i switched to volusion originally (9 months ago?) the 301R was mismanaged, lost a lot of traffic, but after about 4 months it was back to normal.

Knowing that all links are redirected in my recent change, do you have any suggestions/thoughts on what to do to regain my traffic?

Hi Mozers,

I recently changed my URLs for my ecommerce site and my traffic went from 2,000 visitors a week to 1,000 visitors a week, over a 3 week period. Traffic is down, so are unique Kwds. I need advice on why this happened and what I should do moving forward.

To brief, I have a ecommerce website, www.ecustomfinishes.com.  I noticed pattern that a lot of my URLs with a unique URL structure (URL.Com/ProductDescription/ProductName) were getting a lot of entrances  ~30-50 a month, and others that followed the path of my subcategory (URL.com/SubCat/Product) were getting 0-3 entrances a month.

The seo pattern was that those with unique product URLs were hitting long tail Kwds, and those URLs with  /subcategory/product were getting far less traffic. I changed 150 or so urls to be unique. Good idea, I thought. Since then:

CON: Since then my traffic dropped from 2200 visitors a week to 1100 visitors a week. -25% week to week, over 3 weeks

CON: # of non-paid keywords sending visits: -25% week to week, over 3 weeks

PRO: my Urls receiving entrances +10% week to week, over 3 weeks

REF: http://imgur.com/GwZT8

Question: What are your best suggestions moving forward?

Any advice is much appreciated,

Thank you!!!

abBN3

Hi Simon,

Thank you for your response. I understand the google algo update, and according to matt cutts it seems like this is for urls that are intended to pick up on one search, like www.seohelpinmassachussetts.com, but wouldnt effect website.com/seo-help-in-mass.

To your second comment, my apologies if I did not explain clearly enough, but the driver for my changes is that some of my product pages are getting a lot of entrance traffic and most are getting very very little traffic. I want more entrances for the product pages, so i am replicating what is working. Specifically, all/most of the pages that are getting the high entrances have uniqueurl/product, whereas the ones with /subcategory/product are all getting very little. The shock is my drop in traffic, despite replication of what is working best for my pages. This posted question is to see if anyone has any reactions suggestions or cautions before i make this major adjustment to my site.

best,

Chris

Hi Mozers,

I have a niche ecommerce site http://www.ecustomfinishes.com that sells custom barn wood furniture. I have about 600 products online. 2 weeks ago I started rewriting my urls from /subcategoryurl/ProductA   to    /UNIQUEURL/productA for  my individual products,

For example for my subcategory farm tables (150 products) I had

• /rustic-farm-tables/productA,
• /rustic-farm-tables/ProductB       ...."rustic-farm-table" about 150 times.

2 weeks ago I started changing the 150x "/rustic-farm-table/" to  a more descriptive URL such as

• /white-farm-table/producA
• /rustic-square-dining-table/ProductB
• /Black-harvest-table/ProductC

Here is why I am need advice:

• I have  1181 pages,
• the page with the most entrances with "rustic-farm-tables"  is #31/1181  based on entrances. the 2nd most is #71/1181
• Alternatively, I have 13 table product  pages such a as /12ft-Rustic-Farm-Dining-Table-p/12-foot-table-with-inlay.htm"  that get more entrances than any product that includes "rustic-farm-tables"
• Since changing the urls to be product specific,  my overall traffic has dropped 20%!!!

So here is my question:

• do i continue to have the /UNIQUEURL/product be unique to the product, which is consistant amongst my best preforming pages, yet has dropped my traffic 20% in the last 2 weeks, OR do i keep /SAME-URL/product  which written as  a best practice, and be happy with the traffic I had?
• Could the 20% drop just be a temporary shock? Why would this happen?

This would be a good long tail/head term experiment. Try to get more head terms, or do what you can do focus on long tail. I hope i was able to explain this well, I say follow the best practices of  my best preforming pages, however the 20% drop has me worried.

Thank you in advance for your help

thank you everyone who contributed to this response, I found it very helpful. I will adjust my pages this morning, incase anyone checks back. If I see any dramatic SEO changes I will let you know.

Also this is my first time posting on SEOMOZ, loved it! What a cool feature.

Hi Mozers,

I have a  ecommerce furniture website, and I have been wondering for some time if showing the product descriptions on the sub/category page helps the website.

If there is more content displayed on the subcategory, it should be more relevant, right?

OR does it not matter, as it is duplicate content from the product page.

I think showing the product descriptions on non-product pages is hurting my design/flow, but i worry that if I am to hide product content on sub/category pages my traffic will be hurt.

Despite my searches I have not found an answer yet.

Please take a look at my site and share your thoughts:

http://www.ecustomfinishes.com/

Chris

27eVz

Again, thank you for your feedback!

I may have changed a few of the product codes which should create a 404, but i had a catch all redirect so now they are soft 404. I only have 29 total, or 20 more than when i started. I will make sure to fix, even if this is not the cause.

With 1200 pages, and 600 products I am confident that +20 soft 404's is causing 25% week over week traffic, hurting me from 2K a week to 1K a week.

See screenshot from webmaster tools

http://imgur.com/90vIh

I am so puzzled by this.

I think that I have just shocked the engines. I have done it before, hurt for 6 weeks, then back to normal, hopefully better (fingers crossed).