• BBgmoro

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Get found
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
          Moz API

          Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. What is the best practice for URLs for E-commerce products in multiple categories?

        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.

        What is the best practice for URLs for E-commerce products in multiple categories?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4
        4
        2182
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Hatfish
          Hatfish last edited by

          Hello all!

          I have always worked successfully with SEO on E-commerce sites, however we are currently revamping an older site for a client and so I thought I'd turn to the community to ask what the best practices that you guys are experiencing for url structures at the moment.

          Obviously we do not wish to create duplicate content and so the big question is, what would you guys do for the very best structure for URLs on an E-commerce site that has products in multiple categories?

          Let's imagine we are selling toy cars. I have a sports car for sale, so naturally it can go in the sports cars category and it could also go in to the convertibles category too. What is the best way you have found recently that works and increases rankings, but does not create duplicate content?

          Thanks in advance! 🙂

          Kind Regards,

          JDM

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • LesleyPaone
            LesleyPaone last edited by

            Does the platform you are using let you select a default category for the product? Several platforms will let you select multiple categories and make you chose one as a default category. If so, you can just work off the uri of the page and insert the default category as the canonical category in the rel=canonical.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • JMcKaye
              JMcKaye last edited by

              Use the rel=canonical tag so that all URL's would point to the 'end' toy car page - hence avoiding any duplicate content. If there isn't much content anyway, Google has said they actually wouldn't penalise for this.

              I had a little look and found something slightly similar I guess here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/wFlGmPiQe5E

              I'd def use Rel=Canonical though

              Jamie

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Ray-pp
                Ray-pp last edited by

                Hi Hatfish,

                If both categories are relevant and deserve their own areas, then put the products in both the hierarchies. Then, decide which heirarchy is the most important (from a SERPs perspective) and Canonical the product URL to a single URL.

                Using your example:

                The sports car category would be my main category. When you navigate to the Convertibles category you would be able to find that sports car. However, when visiting the product the URL would resolve to a single URL. So, if I was in the convertible category it would send me to the Sports Car hierarchy page (through a 301 redirect).

                Make sure to identify 1 URL for canonical purposes

                Make sure to 301 the subordinate URL to the main URL

                This way the user can use both areas to navigate through your site and find the product they are looking for. But, as far as SEO is concerned there is only 1 main URL for each product.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Dan-Louis

                  URL Structure & Best Practice when Facing 4+ Sub-levels

                  Hi. I've spent the last day fiddling with the setup of a new URL structure for a site, and I can't "pull the trigger" on it. Example: - domain.com/games/type-of-game/provider-name/name-of-game/ Specific example: - arcade.com/games/pinball/deckerballs/starshooter2k/ The example is a good description of the content that I have to organize. The aim is to a) define url structure, b) facilitate good ux, **c) **create a good starting point for content marketing and SEO, avoiding multiple / stuffing keywords in urls'. The problem? Not all providers have the same type of game. Meaning, that once I get past the /type-of-game/, I must write a new category / page / content for /provider-name/. No matter how I switch the different "sub-levels" around in the url, at one point, the provider-name doesn't fit as its in need of new content, multiple times. The solution? I can skip "provider-name". The caveat though is that I lose out on ranking for provider keywords as I don't have a cornerstone content page for them. Question: Using the URL structure as outlined above in WordPress, would you A) go with "Pages", or B) use "Posts"

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan-Louis
                  0
                • lcourse

                  What is best practice for "Sorting" URLs to prevent indexing and for best link juice ?

                  We are now introducing 5 links in all our category pages for different sorting options of category listings.
                  The site has about 100.000 pages and with this change the number of URLs may go up to over 350.000 pages.
                  Until now google is indexing well our site but I would like to prevent the "sorting URLS" leading to less complete crawling of our core pages, especially since we are planning further huge expansion of pages soon. Apart from blocking the paramter in the search console (which did not really work well for me in the past to prevent indexing) what do you suggest to minimize indexing of these URLs also taking into consideration link juice optimization? On a technical level the sorting is implemented in a way that the whole page is reloaded, for which may be better options as well.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
                  0
                • digitalcrc

                  Best-practice URL structures with multiple filter combinations

                  Hello, We're putting together a large piece of content that will have some interactive filtering elements. There are two types of filters, topics and object types. The architecture under the hood constrains us so that everything needs to be in URL parameters. If someone selects a single filter, this can look pretty clean: www.domain.com/project?topic=firstTopic
                  or
                  www.domain.com/project?object=typeOne The problems arise when people select multiple topics, potentially across two different filter types: www.domain.com/project?topic=firstTopic-secondTopic-thirdTopic&object=typeOne-typeTwo I've raised concerns around the structure in general, but it seems to be too late at this point so now I'm scratching my head thinking of how best to get these indexed. I have two main concerns: A ton of near-duplicate content and hundreds of URLs being created and indexed with various filter combinations added Over-reacting to the first point above and over-canonicalizing/no-indexing combination pages to the detriment of the content as a whole Would the best approach be to index each single topic filter individually, and canonicalize any combinations to the 'view all' page? I don't have much experience with e-commerce SEO (which this problem seems to have the most in common with) so any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalcrc
                  0
                • djlittman

                  If I own a .com url and also have the same url with .net, .info, .org, will I want to point them to the .com IP address?

                  I have a domain, for example, mydomain.com and I purchased mydomain.net, mydomain.info, and mydomain.org.  Should I point the host @ to the IP where the .com is hosted in wpengine? I am not doing anything with the .org, .info, .net domains.  I simply purchased them to prevent competitors from buying the domains.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djlittman
                  0
                • kking4120

                  What's the best way to redirect categories & paginated pages on a blog?

                  I'm currently re-doing my blog and have a few categories that I'm getting rid of for housecleaning purposes and crawl efficiency. Each of these categories has many pages (some have hundreds). The new blog will also not have new relevant categories to redirect them to (1 or 2 may work). So what is the best place to properly redirect these pages to? And how do I handle the paginated URLs? The only logical place I can think of would be to redirect them to the homepage of the blog, but since there are so many pages, I don't know if that's the best idea. Does anybody have any thoughts?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kking4120
                  0
                • WebRiverGroup

                  What is the best way to handle special characters in URLs

                  What is the best way to handle special characters? We have some URL's that use special characters and when a sitemap is generate using Xenu it changes the characters to something different. Do we need to have physically change the URL back to display the correct character? Example: URL:  http://petstreetmall.com/Feeding-&-Watering/361.html Sitmap Link:  http://www.petstreetmall.com/Feeding-%26-Watering/361.html

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebRiverGroup
                  0
                • msquare

                  Submitting URLs multiple times in different sitemaps

                  We have a very dynamic site, with a large number of pages. We use a sitemap index file, that points to several smaller sitemap files. The question is: Would there be any issue if we include the same URL in multiple sitemap files? Scenario: URL1 appears on sitemap1. 2 weeks later, the page at URL1 changes and we'd like to update it on a sitemap. Would it be acceptable to add URL1 as an entry in sitemap2?  Would there be any issues with the same URL appearing multiple times? Thanks.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | msquare
                  0
                • Colage

                  Multiple stores & domains vs. One unified store (SEO pros / cons for E-Commerce)

                  Our company runs a number of individual online shops, specialised in particular products but all in the same genre of goods overall, with a specific and relevant domain name for each shop. At the moment the sites are separate, and not interlinked, i.e. Completely separate brands. An analogy could be something like clothing accessories (we are not in the clothing business): scarves.com, and silkties.com (our field is more niche than this) We are about to launch a related site, (e.g. handbags.com), in the same field again but without precisely overlapping products. We will produce this site on a newer, more flexible e-commerce platform, so now is a good time to consider whether we want to place all our sites together with one e-commerce system on the backend. Essentially, we need to know what the pros and cons would be of the various options facing us and how the SEO ranking is affected by the three possibilities. Option 1: continue with separate sites each with its own domains. Option 2: have multiple sites, each on their own domain, but on the same ecommerce system and visible linked together for the customer (with unified checkout) – on the top of each site could be a menu bar linking to each site: [Scarves.com] – [SilkTies.com] – [Handbags.com] The main question here is whether the multiple domains are mutually beneficial, particularly considerding how close to target keywords the individual domains are. If mutually benefitial, how does it compare to option 3: Option 3: Having recently acquired a domain name (e.g. accessories.com) which would cover the whole category together, we are presented with a third option: making one site selling all of these products in different categories. Our main concern here would be losing the ability to specifically target marketing, and losing the benefit of the domains with the key words in for what people are more likely to be searching for (e.g. 'silk tie') rather than 'accessories.' Is it worth taking the hit on losing these specific targeted domain names for the advantage of increased combined inbound links?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Colage
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.